The entertainment industry is filled with people who subjugate their personalities to succeed, but Simon Wright, CEO of Virgin
Entertainment Group International, says that never works. Wright oversees some 700 employees in the U.K.-based Virgin Group’s
U.S. division, which has annual sales of about $200 million. The entertainment arm of Virgin encompasses music, radio, books,
megastores, electronic gaming and even a music festival. Smart Business spoke with Wright about the role of a CEO and the
importance of leading by example.
Listen to your people. One of the most frustrating things is not getting feedback for
one reason or another.
I like to think, most of the time, I adopt
an approachable style that allows people
to talk to me readily. That allows me to
understand them and to understand the
situation.
I like to lead on the basis of fact, not
supposition. I deal with the reality of the
situation, which can sometimes be tough
because reality can often not be easy.
Be yourself. When you get a person who is
very effective and they’ve been promoted, they got a better job. Suddenly that
person, who’s had an incredibly effective
style up to that point, starts throwing
their weight around in a way that’s not
them. They can become incredibly ineffective.
You’ve got the CEO who stands up and
says, ‘I’ve got an open door policy. Just
come and talk to me whenever you
want.’ If, in reality, his office door is
closed all the time or [he] is very difficult
to talk to, then it doesn’t ring true.
You’ve got to watch your behavior every
second to get a particular leadership
style across to people.
Every little action you make, every little thing you say or don’t say can get
picked up, and people take their views
from that rather than what you say.
Don’t change your approach. Power corrupts.
I’ve seen people where they get in that
ultimate leadership position and they do
not follow the principles they followed
to get there in the first place.
They become arrogant. That’s always a
shame, when you see somebody who
should be able to do a brilliant job and
they let it go to their head and they’ve
lost track of all the reasons why they got
there in the first place.
Be honest. We did some layoffs. … My
approach is, make a lot of the [positive
business] results, address the issue of
the layoffs absolutely square on and be
very clear life is going to change. We’re
going to have to adapt and move on all
the time if we’re going to keep our results how they are.
You sacrifice the feel-good factor, but
you gain more in the long term. The feel-good factor only lasts until they hear
something to the contrary.
Get all the information. You shouldn’t make
fundamental decisions on the back of an
envelope. You do have to analyze things
properly. A lot of basic business views
can be developed on the back of quite a
small bit of information.
Certainly you can get it to the stage of
yes or no. You can’t necessarily get it to
the stage of actual investment.
I’m not talking about making the final
decision too quickly. I’m talking about a
process whereby you can get things to a
relatively advanced stage without too
much analysis-paralysis. When you’re at
the point where you’re actually making
the decision, or a choice between two
things, at that point you’ve got to do the
analysis carefully.
Most important you’ve got to have the
right people doing the analysis. The analysis is no good unless it’s hitting the
right issue. Make your decision and have
regard for the downside.
Keep everybody informed. We hold two companywide conferences every year. I also
supplement that with meetings for all
the staff and talk about what’s happening and so on, every six weeks. I send
our HR department around before that
meeting to canvas views on what people
want to hear about so you’re communicating what people want, not just what
you want.
I always finish off with a Q&A. A good
way to get the Q&A going … is [to] directly answer some of the questions you
know people would ask.
Lead by example. If you are a CEO, you are
a leader. The most effective leaders are
quite understated.
You can identify sometimes the most
high-profile leaders, the ones who seek
all the glory and the credit for themselves, but the best leaders are the ones
actually who lead fundamentally by
example, are really all about what you’re
getting done rather than what you’re saying you’re getting done. People respond
to that.
‘Is he doing what he says he is going to
do. Do I believe him? Will he listen to
me? Is he hearing what I’m saying?’ All
those things are fundamental leadership
skills.
Be persistent. If you push hard enough,
things will go the way you want them
usually. The important thing is not to
give up at the first hurdle.
Life can get pretty tough. People can be
pretty tough with you at times. You can
think that your options are diminishing
by the minute, but if you keep pushing
forward, you usually find the right route
through it.
It’s when you throw your hands up in
the air and go, ‘I can’t control this, it’s all
the other people’s fault.’ That’s when it
all goes wrong.
HOW TO REACH: Virgin Entertainment Group International,
www.virgin.com/us/entertainment
