By Avril David

In my article "How to Rise Fast at Work" I told the true story of two first-year analysts at a small investment firm who took vastly different approaches to getting ahead at the job, with vastly different results. Mark focused on learning about his organization from top to bottom, helping to bring about meaningful change wherever he could and developing his skills beyond what his job required so he could address needs he discovered at the organization. Ted, meanwhile, concentrated on doing his work faster than others, speaking regularly to important people in senior management and making himself and his abilities known at every available opportunity. Mark shot ahead; Ted languished.

Mark and Ted's stories confirm that competence at one's assigned tasks is hardly all it takes to achieve success and become a leader. Mark and Ted are both very bright, but Ted chose to put all his energy into being competent--that virtue we spend 12, 16 or even more years learning in school. Do your homework, study hard for the test and get an A. Mark displayed not only competence but also right attitude and high potential. His experience shows how you need three essential characteristics--I call them "CAP," for competence, attitude and potential--to rise within an organization. You need much broader strengths than just competence alone.

Let me explain what I mean. First I'll discuss attitude, then potential. What exactly is the right attitude? It can't be measured, but you can see it clearly through the lens of what is called emotional intelligence.

According to Daniel Goleman, the author of Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, emotional intelligence is the ability to "motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustrations; to control impulse and delay gratification; to regulate one's moods and keep distress from swamping the ability to think; to empathize and to hope." In other words, it's the ability to maintain a positive attitude and emotional control in the face of what life throws at you. Mark showed plenty of this kind of intelligence in his brushing off of snide comments from colleagues. Goleman argues that intellectual ability, or competence, can't by itself predict success. Intellectual ability plus emotional intelligence is what it takes. Failure to manage your emotions appropriately can both stunt your ability to learn and impede your ability to make use of what you do learn.

What I call potential is a matter not of emotional intelligence but of what you could call organizational intelligence, meaning understanding the moving parts within an organization and being able to function at peak capacity across a variety of organizational settings. It means comprehending the knowledge chain of information in the organization, people's roles and responsibilities, how they get their jobs done and the organization's overall mission and goals. Having a deep understanding of your organization as well as your place within it enables you to identify gaps between its goals and reality, so you can work to help it reach those goals. In so doing, you usually develop new skills and responsibilities that make you a more valuable employee and better positioned for career advancement.

Here is another true story, from the health care field. After 20 years as a registered nurse Abbey (whose name I've changed) began to get bored. She didn't want to commit the time or resources to go back to school to receive another medical degree, but she did want to take on more authority at her hospital. She wanted to get ahead, but she didn't want to play all the organizational politics it might take. She liked most of her co-workers, and she didn't want to put others down as she rose up. Essentially, she just wanted to feel more valuable to her organization.

Abbey began to consider ways she could make herself a greater asset to her hospital. Two obvious simple answers: Try to do her existing work better and faster, and take on more work from her co-workers. The former might be possible, since she did have high confidence in her abilities as a nurse, but given the youth of some of the newest nurses, she imagined they could be faster on their feet. As for the latter option, she had absolutely no desire to simply spend more hours at the same work, especially if it meant taking away duties from her co-workers. She didn't want to step on their toes or overwork herself. She simply wanted to be more valuable.

Instead, she decided she would try to find ways to help the hospital run better. As a nurse herself, she figured she would start with the nurses. She began to research training courses for nurses, figuring they could be useful for all the nurses. She launched an effort to get every nurse to take one new class every other month. On the off months, the nurses could hold discussion sessions about the classes they had taken and talk about how the classes could help them improve their day-to-day work.

Proud of her idea, she decided to run it by the other nurses once she had collected a list of training courses, their prices and the potential benefits. The nurses liked it all and thanked her for consulting them before taking the idea to management. Management then went for it too and asked her to get it going and organize groups of nurses for the training sessions. Suddenly she was in charge of her own initiative, something that had never happened before in her 20-year career.

As a result of the training sessions Abbey organized, nurses became more skilled and the hospital as a whole gained a better reputation. Better nursing meant the doctors could do their jobs better, too, so productivity and quality of care increased even further. Abbey gained recognition from superiors and found herself not only an invaluable member of the nursing staff but also a potential asset to any other hospital, with her newfound expertise.

Let's examine what Abbey did right, according to the CAP way of looking at it.

Competence: With 20 some years of experience, she knew what she was doing as a nurse. She also knew that there were likely things that she and possibly the other nurses didn't know since leaving nursing school. The new training courses complemented her existing experience and enhanced her overall competence at her job.

Attitude: Once she recognized where she could improve her skills, she worked adeptly with others to make her goals for herself and the hospital a reality. This willingness to reach out to others and to act on her desires exemplified a healthy attitude and strong emotional intelligence.

Potential: Before acting on those desires, she first identified what could be improved and worked out a plan based on her organizational intelligence. She needed to understand what management and the other nurses would need to know, such as costs and timing and so on, before they'd give her the go-ahead to execute her plans and achieve the success that she did.

Abbey brought together the elements of CAP--competence, attitude and potential--to rise fast at work. Her competence came from her years of experience and her new training; her attitude revealed itself in her willingness to recognize areas for improvement in herself an others; her potential emerged as she identified needed changes at the hospital and navigated within the organization to bring about those changes. The end result of it all was a promotion to floor manager and an overall increase in the quality of care for the hospital's patients.

Abbey's story shows yet again that you can rise fast at work by creating new value instead of fighting for it and by becoming invaluable to your organization instead of just trying to win.

Avril David is an energy and environment analyst for Project Performance Corporation, a global management consulting firm, and a freelance writer on topics related to careers, energy, climate policy and green business.

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By Avril David

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1 The decline of trust

From the implosion of Britain's biggest banks to the MPs' expenses scandal, 2009 brought a fundamental shift in consumer attitudes to some of the country's biggest institutions. Inevitably, this shift spilled over into consumers' relationships with brands, which have responded to this growing unease with a flight to nostalgia advertising in a bid to reassure consumers.

2 Credit-crunch chic

'Because you're worth it' has been replaced by 'Can you afford it?' as Britain faces up to the worst financial fallout in recent history. Old-style thrift has superseded house prices as the dinner party fodder of the middle classes. Of course, for many of the new frugalistas, this is something of an imagined recession, as declining interest rates have left them with higher disposable incomes. As ever, what consumers say and actually do remain very different - luckily for some, Net A Porter can now deliver in anonymous brown packages.

3 The rise of the canny consumer

This was the year in which online discount vouchers entered the main-stream. Previously the preserve of festive offers and limited sales, it now appears that consumers cannot buy anything without a discount code or voucher. For the struggling restaurant sector, BOGOF vouchers have become the norm and more socially acceptable - although perhaps not on a date.

4 Social networking neurosis

In 2009, it appeared that life for many consumers simply wasn't worth living unless it was documented on Facebook or Twitter. Every minute of the day, from what they ate for breakfast to the break-ups and make-ups of relationships, were broad-cast. How comfortable consumers are with brands using this information for commercial purposes remains to be seen. What is clear is that brands falling short on customer service are being named and shamed in an instant, presenting a big challenge for marketers.

5 Crowd-sourcing

Getting consumers to create products, ads and ideas for brands was one of the most compelling themes of the year. Brands as diverse as Peperami, OXO and Doritos leaned on consumers to come up with ideas for products and advertising, netting valuable PR coverage in the process.

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Via the Phil McKinney blog

One of the constant challenges for an innovator is to prove the value of their work.  Many believe that innovation and creativity cannot be measured and therefore will always struggle with getting the respect it deserves within an organization.

The perception that innovation impact cannot be measures is a myth.  At the same time, its not a slam dunk either.  The challenge is getting an organization aligned on what the right metrics and measurements.

One metric that is commonly used and one that I don’t agree with is:

Innovation = R&D Spend as % of Revenue

This is the metric that Wall Street applies to most companies.  So what’s wrong with it?  Its non-predictive of future success and it doesn’t take into account:

1. Innovation delay:  They are measuring future output of R&D spend against today’s revenue.  Any valid metric needs to ensure time scales are consistent.
2. Revenue is impacted by a lot more than just R&D spend:  Revenue has a lot of things thrown in that are not impacted or even influenced by innovation/R&D spend.  A valid metric needs to ensure that the components of the metric is influenced by R&D.

So what are some better metrics?

The ones I like and use often are:

• R&D Impact = Gross Margin / R&D Spend  – This is an “old” Bill Hewlett and David Packard metric they used to ensure proper return for the R&D effort being invested.  Why gross margin?  The theory is that if you build a better mouse trap, the customer will reward you with a margin premium which will show up in gross margin.  Target:  Measure your competitors and you want to be in top quartile.

• Patent quality – Some in the industry focus on total number of patents rather than the quality of patents.  Quality is defined by how often your patents are referenced as fundamental technology in other patents (others are building ideas based on your work) and the value of the patent portfolio (how much would someone pay you for your patents).

• % of Time Executives Spend on Innovation – The key measurement of where executive focus is to measure where they spend their time.  Does your organization do a “once a year” look at innovation or do the top executives regularly schedule sessions where they put aside tactical/operational discussions and focus on strategy and innovation?   Target: ~10%

• Spend Of R&D – Not all R&D spend is good spend.  In many organizations, there is a tendency to over spend in the current money makers (core) and starve the new ideas.  Target:  Varies by industry but a good starting point would be 70% to the core, 20% to adjacencies (existing products/services into new markets/customers)  and 10% to new (new products/services into new market/customers).

For more background, listen to the Killer Innovations Podcast “Measuring Innovation Impact“.  It’s from 2007 but still has some good background …

The above metrics are very R&D focused and innovation is not limited to just R&D.  So, here are some questions I have for you …

What are some metrics that are not R&D focused that quantify impact?

What metrics do you think should be used by Wall Street and “management” that represents the impact from innovation?

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Via thesaleshunter

Recently I noticed a sales call that should have resulted in a sale very rapidly. However, it was delayed a rather long period of time due to the customer’s inability to make a decision. Their inability to make a decision stemmed from the numerous options the salesperson was presenting. In essence, the customer was overwhelmed with too much information to process. As a result, their natural defense mechanism of slowing down kicked in.

Watch what you present and how you present. Don’t allow yourself to become so enthused about what you’re selling that you offer the customers more options than they can process. Yes, it may appear you’re potentially leaving out some sales by closing too early, but when the customer is confused, you’re not going to make any sales anyway.

The best way to work through this situation is by first making sure the customer is engaged. Are they giving you the information that allows you to determine what they really want and need? As you present options, only present enough options for them to make a decision. You can do this by trial closing as a way of finding out what their decision-making criteria really is. After you have one sale, you can always come back for more, but until you get the first sale, you can’t even begin thinking about the next sale.

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Το πρόγραμμα Special Nights πραγματοποιείται σε επιλεγμένα bar σε όλη την Ελλάδα.

Κάθε εβδομάδα (για συνολικά 6 εβδομάδες) ο καταναλωτής έχει τη δυνατότητα να απολαύσει την ίδια ημέρα (Τετάρτη), και για συγκεκριμένο ωράριο, special ποτό στην τιμή του απλού.

Τα προϊόντα συμμετοχής είναι:

Johnnie Walker Black Label: Στον ιδανικά ισσοροπημένο συνδυασμό όλων των malt και grain whiskies οφείλεται η αξεπέραστη ποιότητα της γεύσης του Johnnie Walker Black Label καθώς και επιτυχημένη διεθνής πορεία του. Κάθε χρόνο το Johnnie Walker Black Label αποσπά χρυσά μετάλλια και διακρίσεις επιτυγχάνοντας έτσι να αποτελεί το πρότυπο βάσει του οποίου κρίνονται όλα τα υπόλοιπα Deluxe Whiskies.

Dimple: Η ιστορία του πασίγνωστου αυτού blended deluxe αρχίζει πριν από 350 χρόνια όταν ο Robert Haig το 1655 άρχισε να πειραματίζεται με αποστάξεις. Έχει πάρει πολλά βραβεία μεταξύ των οποίων και ένα το 1956 για το σχήμα του μπουκαλιού του το οποίο κατοχυρώθηκε με δίπλωμα ευρεσιτεχνίας.

Tanqueray 10: Δε φτιάχνεται σαν τα άλλα gin, με αποξηραμένα βότανα, αλλά με ολόφρεσκα.Γεμάτο δύναμη και στιβαρότητα, με «περίεργο» για τους ασυνήθιστους feeling φρέσκου πεύκου στη γεύση, το premium status της ποιότητάς του γεμίζει εκλεπτυσμένες «ακτίνες» τα γευστικά χαρακτηριστικά του. Η μακρύτατη επίγευση, όπως οφείλει να είναι σε κάθε σοβαρό gin, θυμίζει grapefruit.

Smirnoff Black: Παράγεται μόνο στην Μόσχα, με απόσταξη σε χάλκινους άμβυκες, χρησιμοποιώντας μια μοναδική μέθοδο φιλτραρίσματος μέσα από ξυλοκάρβουνο Ρωσικής λυγαριάς. Με χαρακτηριστικά τη λεπτή ραφιναρισμένη γεύση και την άφθαστη ποιότητα της απολαμβάνεται σκέτη και παγωμένη.

Don Julio Reposado: Έχει απαλή μεταξένια γεύση με συναρπαστικό συνδυασμό αχλαδιού, λεμονιού, μήλου και κανέλας με μέλι και περιεκτικότητα 38% σε αλκοόλ. Ξεκουράζεται σχετικά λίγο (από 8 μήνες έως 1 χρόνο) σε βαρέλια κατασκευασμένα από δρύ.

Pampero Aniversario: Περίπλοκη, πλούσια γεύση, με νότες καφέ ζάχαρης και κακάο, σκούρο χρυσαφί χρώμα, ένα ρούμι από τη Βενεζουέλα. Ενα ρούμι από τη Βενεζουέλα, με τη δύναμη του Rampero, του τυφώνα της Νότιας Αμερικής. Με σώμα γεμάτο, σκούρο χρυσαφί χρώμα, γεύσεις ψητού μήλου, ανανά, καπνού και καρυδιών, αρώματα μπαχαρικών και πλούσιο, μακρύ τελείωμα.

Ημερομηνίες διεξαγωγής:

27/01/2010

03/02/2010

10/02/2010

17/02/2010

24/02/2010

03/03/2010

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By John Baldoni

The announcement of Apple's iPad is turning many people's thoughts to the innovations behind big ideas. Innovations such as these play a critical role in a company's future, but companies often hinder themselves by focusing on finding the next big thing, when in reality, the next small thing might be more beneficial.

The more that employees are encouraged to think creatively and apply that creativity, the more flexible in practice and nimble in responsiveness a company becomes. When you take pressure off people to come up with a "big" idea, you encourage the creativity that can bring about incremental innovations. As a result, a new service or product offering may emerge, but it's more likely that you will optimize your operations for cost, quality, efficiency, and speed.

At its core, innovation is applied creativity. And, it is my belief since I have seen it for years is that most employees can be encouraged to be creative, if you want them to be.

How can you encourage small innovations?

Think small. The beauty of small innovations is that they focus on immediate concerns, not on finding game-changing products. Encourage your people to find a solution to a problem, or a better way of doing things.

Try posing questions: How can accounting streamline billing? How can customer service resolve issues on the phone without supervisor intervention? How can product engineers find more time to spend with customers? Using such questions will get people generating ideas. Not every idea will be brilliant, but that's the point. You want to collect ideas, refine them, and select the best for implementation.

Implement locally. Since most small innovations are limited to a department or a function, put them into action as soon as possible. If the idea does not work as expected, don't abandon it immediately — see if you can tweak it. Implementation itself can be creative and sometimes it takes several tries to make innovative ideas work as expected, or beyond expectations.

Promote widely. You need to recognize those who think of and support the innovations. Many organizations provide incentives for such efforts, from gift coupons all the way up to substantive bonuses for innovations that positively affect the entire company. The important thing is to recognize the right people, and to do it in a timely fashion.

Encouraging small innovations is only part of the management equation. Execution of the innovations is critical. No amount of applied creativity can make up for slipped deadlines, blown budgets, dissatisfied customers, or unbalanced profit and loss statements. You need to focus on the details to get things done.

You may also discover another benefit from your small innovations: tapping into the collective brainpower of your employees. They are your collaborators, and by treating them as such you make it known that you welcome their ideas and will reward them.

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Via managesmarter

CEOs who made it through the last year-and-a-half already have been tested, but it looks like the tests are just beginning. "The challenges confronting top executives will only multiply and intensify," says Stephen Parker, chief commercial officer of Healthy Companies, which for 20 years has maintained a dialog with 300 CEOs in 40 countries. "Our research indicates widespread uncertainty about the future. Many CEOs will be severely tested in the decade ahead." Healthy Companies identified 10 trends it believes are creating an adverse environment for corporate leadership:

1. Volatile Markets: With increasing unpredictability in market conditions, CEOs must place more emphasis on thriving in chaos, and less on prediction and control.

2. Wary Consumers: With organic growth threatened by reduced consumer confidence and restricted credit, CEOs must make the most of scarcer business opportunities by getting back to business basics and focusing on execution.

3. Cynical Public: With lingering anger from the recession focused on the "haves," a group in which most top executives fit, CEOs should work hard to rebuild trust, even if they feel they were not to blame.

4. Diminished Loyalty: With institutions floundering and short-term rewards illusory, CEOs must respond to people's yearning for organizations that are both sustainable and in service of a higher purpose.

5. Global Competition: With increasingly fierce global competition for reputation, customers, money, and talent, CEOs must make their organizations distinctive—with a compelling customer and employee brand—while creating growth, innovation, differentiation, and superior performance.

6. Escalating Costs: Due to rising human capital costs and greater emphasis on the health of people and companies, CEOs must understand and manage all the levers that create healthy companies, not just the costs.

7. Fear of the Future: As people have lost their collective confidence in top leaders and businesses, especially in the U.S., CEOs must find platforms to speak and act pragmatically while creating a convincing vision of a better future.

8. Public Scrutiny: With increased board and regulator accountability, as well as intense media exposure, CEOs must make collaboration, win-win partnerships, equitable rewards systems, and stakeholder balance a part of the DNA of their organizations.

9. Instantaneous Global Communication: With hydra-like electronic blogs and social networks making it possible for news—good, bad, or fabricated—to go global in a matter of minutes, CEOs must be impeccably authentic, globally literate, and facile with the new rules of social media.

10. Limited Natural Resources: With greater public awareness of diminishing natural resources and the impact of business on the environment, CEOs must visibly deploy strategies to earn their credibility in a greener world. According to Parker, the overarching challenge these trends bring to many CEOs relates to communication: "CEOs are struggling to build trust with their employees. They need to develop communication channels to mobilize their workforces and other stakeholders in a way that combats the noise and distraction of working in today's tumultuous environments. CEO communication is the foundation of building a healthy company."

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By Robyn Lewis

Simon Litherland, the newly-appointed managing director of Diageo GB, talks to Robyn Lewis about developing and growing his flagship UK drinks company.

Isn’t it funny how some people talk 19 to the dozen, meandering with sub clauses, fleshing out the bare bones of a conversation with questions and observations, while others prefer a more pared down approach. Answer the question. Next question.

Simon Litherland, the 45-year-old newly-installed managing director of Diageo GB, is definitely more of the latter than of the former.

Litherland, one gets the impression, is a man for whom less is definitely more. A man who does not like wasting time and who does not relish sitting around. When asked what he likes to do to relax, for example, he says: “My first priority after work is my family. Then golf, squash, tennis and some rugby coaching.” Phew!

As the man charged with developing and growing one of the UK’s flagship drinks companies, this characteristic will surely be no bad thing. He has by his own admission been “busy in the extreme” since taking over the helm from Benet Slay last July.

From the beginning

South African Litherland began his career in the insurance industry before joining the Pillsbury division of Grand Metropolitan, moving over to the drinks division of the company a few years later. He has since run businesses in central and eastern Europe, Ireland and, directly before this role, in South Africa where he set up a business called Brandhouse in 2004.

Brandhouse is an unusual business model, a joint venture between three big drinks companies — Heineken, Namibia Breweries and Diageo — which comprises some 40 drinks brands across the beers, wines and spirits categories.

“It is quite an unusual set-up,” he says. “I think there are only a few other examples of that in the entire world but, in terms of Brandhouse at least, the structure worked incredibly well.”

The unusual business model has more in common with the Diageo GB business than you might think, suggests Litherland.

“Despite perhaps normally being viewed as primarily a spirits company, Diageo has a full portfolio of drinks brands across beer, wine and spirits, which is really just another example of Brandhouse,” he says.

The markets each operates in however, are very different, he admits.

“The UK market is a very mature one, a low-growth market if you like, whereas South Africa is an emerging market with a growing middle class and is very much in a different place. But there are similarities as well in terms of how we work with our brands to strengthen their position, how we work with our customers in a collaborative way, how we find areas of growth that we want to go after. There’s a lot of consistencies.”

One of the big lessons Litherland says he is bringing to the job from his experience in markets such as South Africa, is how to develop a closer relationship with customers. This is something which critics of Diageo have said the company has lacked in the past.

“I’d agree with that to a certain extent,” says Litherland.

“I think Diageo has traditionally been quite consumer-centric and brand-led, but I think over the last little while we’ve been much more focused on our customers. Working collaboratively with customers will create opportunities for us and them.”

To this end the company has established a new customer marketing division, along with a new luxury arm, Reserve Brands Group, which has been charged with looking after the premium brands in the portfolio, a second area of growth Litherland has pinpointed for the UK market.

“I genuinely believe there is still scope for growth in the UK, even though the market is clearly relatively flat and conditions will remain tough in the short term,” he explains.

“Aside from the new business divisions we are all working towards growing our brands, taking share from competition, which is absolutely an avenue we are after. Also working with different segments of the market — convenience, independents, for example, as well as in big grocers and in the on-trade as well, of course.”

Challenge of the on-trade

The on-trade is an interesting challenge for Litherland who acknowledges that the UK is a market that has been shifting in favour of at-home consumption for some time. He is adamant however that pubs, bars and restaurants remain as important to the Diageo business as ever before.

“Of course the shift has affected our business model and the on-trade has had a tough time of late, but declines are slowing now and I think they will continue to do so. Furthermore the trade that remains has consistently higher standards and is determined to deliver a better all-round experience to its consumers.” This is, of course, not only positive for consumers, but is also something that suppliers like Diageo can participate in and benefit from, he notes.

“I think we already support the trade and will continue to do so. The best example of that is our programme of support for Guinness stockists, which includes a helpline, engineers on the ground and plenty of marketing support, and there’s our Finished Drinks programme as well.

This addresses how we present finished drinks to consumers in the on-trade, how we work with trade to educate and support businesses and how to get great looking, great tasting, finished drinks out there every time.

The on-trade experience will continue to influence the at-home experience, so it’s important we get it right.”

Outside of the on-trade directly it is wine and beer that Litherland is also looking to for growth. Its wine arm, Percy Fox, which includes such brands as Blossom Hill and Piat D’or and its fine wine division J&B Wines, are performing well and are ripe for further development he says.

“Wine is a very important part of our business and it is doing very well. Blossom Hill is the lead brand in the portfolio and we’ve just taken on another brand, Arniston Bay (a South African range “by coincidence”), and I think there’s a lot of potential there. We’ve also been working on a relaunch of our Piat D’Or range and fine wine continues to perform for us, so I’m delighted to have such a strong position in a category that continues to grow.”

In terms of beer, Litherland says that the “small but growing share” of the category the company has with Guinness continues to be exciting, but says he is keen to look at how Diageo participates in the category with a broader range of beers.

“We are in the process of launching Windhoek Lager here, which is the biggest brand in Namibia and part of the Brandhouse stable. We’ve got an interesting world beer portfolio at Diageo, brands like Tusker or Senator from Kenya, and with world beer growing here I think that is something we can participate in.”

Innovation

Diageo’s track record for new brand launches has been a mixed bag in recent years, with the success of brand extensions such as Bailey’s flavours and Smirnoff Apple and Lime contrasted by the high-profile failure of launches like Quinn’s and Slate 20. However Litherland is adamant that the company isn’t shying away from genuine new-product development in favour of importing brands or adding brand variants to an existing range.

“Innovation, by its very nature, is always going to produce mixed results,” he reasons. “We have had more success recently with brand variants rather than new brand launches, but they are still targeted at consumer needs and occasions that weren’t being met.

It just so happened that they were a great fit with existing brands. If we identify occasions that aren’t being met that we can’t see any of our brands fitting, then we’ll be absolutely happy to bring out a new brand that will.”

Litherland hopes his tenure at the helm of Diageo will result in the company becoming “the most celebrated consumer goods company in the UK”.

“The UK can be a great market for Diageo and will not only continue to be important, but to increase its importance to the business,” he states.

Litherland on the Guinness price rise

We added 5.1% into the wholesale cost of Guinness, which may not be popular with some, as no one likes a price rise.

Clearly the euro hasn’t helped us a lot, among other factors, but as long as we are still giving consumers value for money — I believe we are — I think people will remain loyal to the brand.

We are continuing to spend a lot of money to make sure there is great quality, great tasting Guinness out there. I think that that quality, and what Guinness the brand has to offer, is still good value and consumers won’t be turned away by the price rise.

Litherland on Litherland

•Family: wife and two children — twins, a boy and a girl aged five and a half

•Favourite drink: I love Johnnie Walker and am partial to a pint of Guinness as well

•What book are you currently reading? The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell

•What was the last film you saw? Space Chimps

•What’s your favourite word? Possibility

•I would most like to own... That’s a difficult one! I was given a Wii for Christmas but I think that was more for the kids than me, really.

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By Alan Murray

When you think about great leaders in history, is it a George S. Patton who comes to your mind – the outspoken general who was once relieved of command for slapping a soldier recuperating in a hospital?

Or are you more likely to think of Abraham Lincoln – quiet, thoughtful, tortured to the edge of mental illness by his own doubts?

Is it the dictatorial Julius Caesar who is your model? Or the inquisitive Socrates? Do you fashion yourself as the next "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap? Or do you relate to the unassuming Sam Walton?

Leaders come in all shapes, sizes and styles. But the question that has to be asked is: Is there a "right" way to lead an organization?

If there is one strong conclusion that emerges from the best work on leadership, it is this: Great leaders exhibit a paradoxical mix of arrogance and humility. Leaders must be arrogant enough to believe they are worth following, but humble enough to know that others may have a better sense of the direction they should take.

Often, it's in the humility department that modern leaders fail. Think of Carly Fiorina, who as CEO of Hewlett-Packard had her own picture inserted on the wall between those of the company's iconic founders, Messers. Hewlett and Packard. Ms. Fiorina's leadership of H-P foundered in part because she was perceived as devoting too much time to cultivating her own image, and too little to fixing the company's internal management problems.

One of the most influential business books of recent years is Jim Collins' Good to Great. Collins' findings on leadership are compelling in part because they were unexpected. Collins and his team launched a huge research project looking at 1,435 large companies and ultimately identifying just eleven that had made the leap from good results to great results, and then sustained those results for at least fifteen years. The team examined the good-to-great companies in relation to a comparison group, to see what made them special.

In the early stages of the project, Collins, who was inclined to believe that the importance of leadership was overstated, urged his team to "ignore the executives." But he says the team kept pushing back, saying there was something consistently unusual about the leaders of the good-to-great companies.

"Compared to high-profile leaders with big personalities who make headlines and become celebrities, the good-to-great leaders seem to have come from Mars," Collins writes. "Self-effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy – these leaders are a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. They are more like Lincoln and Socrates than Patton or Caesar."

Collins' "good-to-great" CEOs were people you've likely never heard of – people like Darwin Smith, who took the helm of Kimberly-Clark paper company in 1971, or Colman Meckler, CEO of Gillette from 1975 to 1991. A common characteristic was their profound humility – and a tendency to use the pronoun "we," not "I."

HarperCollins Publishers

Adapted from the forthcoming book, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO MANAGEMENT: Lasting Lessons for the Best Leadership Minds of Our Time, by Alan Murray. Copyright 2010 by Dow Jones & Co. To be published in August by HarperBusiness, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Successful succession planning is one of the most telling signs of a great leader. Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch distinguished himself by developing a roster of leaders who were ready to replace him when he retired. But other CEOs appear unwilling to contemplate the organization's existence after they depart. Seemingly great leaders like former Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill and former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg left behind weak legacies of leadership that ultimately undermined their organizations.

Humility alone, of course, is not enough to make a great leader. Equally important is ferocious resolve – an almost stoic determination to do whatever needs to be done to make the organization great. And that determination is often accompanied by a toughness and even ruthlessness in pursuit of goals.

Former Exxon Mobil Corp. CEO Lee Raymond, for instance, was a shy, almost reclusive man when it came to personal matters. He excelled in math and science in high school, studied chemical engineering, and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota before joining Exxon.

Tall, heavyset, and with a harelip, he was not an obvious choice for leadership. But his sheer determination and perseverance impressed others, and he quickly rose in the company.

As CEO, Raymond avoided public appearances in his industry. He seldom gave speeches or even met with outsiders. But he was relentless in eliminating redundant layers of management. He focused on profitability, and turned Exxon in the most profitable oil company in the world.

Former Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley is another example of a leader whose success reflected that paradoxical mix of arrogance and humility. Lafley inherited a company whose culture was criticized for being too insular. He singlehandedly changed that culture, in part by insisting company executives spend more time with their customers. Lafley himself would make 10 or 15 such visits with consumers every year, observing women doing everything from washing clothes to applying makeup.

Raymond and Lafley were both hugely ambitious; but their ambitions seemed as much for their companies as for their own careers.

Other modern-day business leaders have tended to put their own interests ahead of those of the organization – and suffered as a result. In 2000, for instance, the Journal profiled the restless Joseph Galli in his relentless quest to earn a top CEO post.

Galli worked for 19 years at Black & Decker Corp. and advanced to the number two spot before being forced out after failing to win the top job. He entertained offers from both PepsiCo, to run its Frito-Lay unit, and Amazon, to be number two, flip flopping several times and embarrassing Pepsi by rejecting its offer at the last minute. His tenure at Amazon lasted only 13 months. He was criticized for cutting staff without regard to tenure and destroying the company's "family atmosphere."

Like Raymond and Lafley, Galli was a hard driver. But unlike them, he was seen as driving to his own destination, not leading the organization to a common goal. Galli himself later conceded he often lacked diplomacy. Ultimately, he got a shot at another CEO job, at Techtronic Industries Co.

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