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Alan Sugar: Street Smart

While not quite the classic ‘rags to riches’ story, Alan Sugar is a genuine example of the trope of a smart, hard working street trader, who makes it to the big time. And what a big time it is. The Sunday Times Rich List rates him as a Sterling billionaire. It’s easy to feel we know Alan Sugar, through his successful appearances on the UK version of The Apprentice. I suspect that what we see on screen, however, is a character: part Alan Sugar, and part the creation of the shows directors, producers and editors.

Alan Sugar

Short Biography

Alan Michael Sugar was born in 1947 and grew up in Hackney, in East London. His father worked in the East End garment industry, as did my grandmother. After leaving school at 16, Sugar spent a short time in the Civil Service, before investing £50 of his savings in a van and some electrical goods to sell from it.

Sugar was an adept street trader and gradually moved up the value chain to wholesaling and import, founding his first company, Amstrad (AMS Trading), in 1968. But Sugar realised he would only find the big profit in manufacturing. The business he understood best was consumer electronics, so Amstrad’s first manufacturing venture was record turntables. This was the first of many examples of Sugar finding ways to reduce manufacturing costs substantially, so he could out-compete rivals on price.

The 1980s were great years for Sugar and Amstrad, starting in 1980 with its flotation on the London Stock Exchange. The company grew rapidly and launched its first computer in 1984. Although outcompeted by Apple, Commodore and the BBC Micro, it did sell well domestically, as did the following year’s business-oriented word processor. The 1980s ended with the launch of Amstrad’s first satellite TV receiver dish – a line that was to be extremely profitable, with the growth of satellite broadcasting by Sky, BSB, and later, the merged BSkyB. The 1990s were more troubling for Amstrad, which suffered a number of commercial setbacks.

I cannot help wondering if Sugar ‘took his eye off the ball’ in the 1990s, because this was the time too, that he bought and chaired the Premier League football Club Tottenham Hotspur (1991-2001). He later described this period as a waste of his life, and it was certainly a fractious time at the club.

In 2007, Sugar cleared house, selling off Amstrad to business partners BSkyB and his final stake in Tottenham Hotspur.

In 2000, Sugar was knighted “for services to the Home Computer and Electronics Industry” and became Sir Alan Sugar, and then in 2009, was enobled as Baron Sugar of Clapton, to take up a place in Gordon Brown’s Labour Government, sitting in the House of Lords. In 2015, Sugar resigned the Labour Whip, saying that the party’s policies had drifted too far in a direction away from the needs of British business.

Amstrad is also a serious philanthropist, donating substantial funds and time to care and arts organisations. He has written four books too, of which the most important and best selling is his autobiography, What You See Is What You Get. And, of course, he is best known in the UK for his appearance in every series of BBC TV’s The Apprentice.

Business Lessons from Lord Sugar

Much has been written on this – including by me, in a series of blogs drawing lessons from episodes of The Apprentice over a number of years. So let’s keep it simple. Here are five important lessons for managers and business people to bear in mind.

Lesson 1: Character is Destiny

Whether you like or loathe the image he portrays in public, Sugar cleaves firmly to his own principles and business values. If I had to assess ‘the real Alan Sugar’ – and bear in mind, I have no privileged knowledge here – I would speculate that he is someone who has deep respect for people who can demonstrate their capabilities and expertise at the highest level, and has no time for people who have little ability. Anyone who tries to make up for their shortcomings through ingratiation or deception will incur his wrath.

I suspect trusting his closest allies and advisors profoundly has been important in building his success, but his blunt, no nonsense, and occasionally abrasive style has created detractors. His management style has been criticised, as has his attitude to women at work.

Lesson 2: Spot the Next Big Thing… then move quickly

Computers, word processors, TV satellite dishes, email, PDAs, satellite TV receivers… Sugar was in on the ground floor of all of these. At each stage, he used the knowledge and skills gained in earlier ventures to move quickly and seize market share. He also has a strong insight into customer desires and behaviours, which is critical in commercial decision-making. Not all his ventures have been hugely successful, but in business, it is the cumulative success that matters. Indeed, not all his customer predictions have been sound either: he famously predicted the demise of the iPod within a year. Whoops.

Lesson 3: Out-compete ruthlessly

Sugar’s primary competitive strategy is to out-compete on price. Take early stage technology that has started to stabilise, and find a way to manufacture and ship it at vastly reduced costs. The Amstrad computer was reportedly designed on an airline napkin, on a flight from Japan (where he’d seen early computers on sale) and Hong Kong, where he had business contacts that could help with manufacturing.

Lesson 4: Roll with the Punches

Sugar is a great example of business resilience. Not every venture was a success and he has had difficult times in his commercial life. Maybe a stable family life (40+ years of marriage) helped, but I suspect his personal resilience is also down to his character. Expect set backs, take them on the chin, learn from them, and come back fighting.

Lesson 5: Learn how to Negotiate well

I don’t know what Lord Sugar’s negotiating secrets would be – or even if they are anything more than consistent and ruthless application of sound basic principles. But it is certain that he is able to secure every last ounce out of a deal and is scathing of people who ‘leave money on the table’ in a negotiation.

For more on Negotiation, see:

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12 Blogs for Christmas

Holly&Ivy

This has been a great year for the Pocketblog, seeing reading figures rise substantially and reaching the milestone of our 100th blog posting.

So, with Christmas coming at the end of the week, let’s do a round-up of some personal favourites from among this year’s Pocketblogs.

Here is something for each of the twelve days.  Enjoy!

1. Start as you mean to go on: Happiness

After some New Year’s Resolutions to start the year off, we dived into the subject of Happiness, with ‘Happiness – as simple as ABC?’ about Albert Ellis’s Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy – the fore-runner of CBT.

2. … and Start Topical

We then moved into a subject that was much in the news in February; and still is.  With ‘Bankers’ Bonuses and Brain Biology’, we looked at recent neuroscience and how that relates to Adams’ Equity Theory.

3. Generations

In February too, I wrote two blogs about sociological ‘Generations X, Y & Z’ and ‘Generation Y at work’.  I followed this up by another about what comes ‘After Generation Y?’.

4. The Gemba

In May, inspiration waned for a week, so where did I go to find it?  ‘The Gemba’.  I got it back, and later that month, got idealistic in ‘Reciprocity and Expectation’ looking at the Pay it Forward ideal and the realities of Game Theory.

5. Why do we do what we do?

In the first of two blogs on how to predict human behaviour, I looked at ‘How to Understand your Toddler’ (mine actually) and Icek Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behaviour.  Later in the year, in ‘Predicting Behaviour’, I looked at whether a simple equation (hypothesised by Kurt Lewin) could predict all behaviour.

6. One of the Best Business Books of the Year

… according to the Journal Strategy & Business is Richard Rumelt’s Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The difference and why it matters.  In ‘What Makes a Good Business Strategy’ we looked at some of his ideas.

7. The Apprentice

This year, I have been a big fan of both series and have written my own episode by episode analysis of both The Apprentice and Young Apprentice.  I also did one blog on each for Pocketblog: ‘The Apprentice and Five Levels of Leadership’ and, for Young Apprentice, ‘Decision Failure’.

8. Drucker Triptych

Has any one individual been as influential in establishing management as a pragmatic academic discipline as Peter Drucker?  To recognise his various achievements, I wrote a triptych of blogs over the summer:

  1. The Man who Invented Management
  2. Management by Objectives
  3. R.I.P. Corporate Clone: Arise Insightful Executive

And one of Drucker’s direct contemporaries was W Edwards Deming, so I also took a look at ‘Demings’ System of Profound Knowledge’.

9. Crazy Times

Will history look on Tom Peters with the respect that it holds for Drucker and Deming?  Who knows?  But without a doubt, Peters has been influential, insightful and provocative for thirty years or more, and I am sure many of his ideas will survive.  In ‘Crazy Times Again’, I drew a line from FW Taylor (father of ‘Scientific Management’) to Peters.

10. The Circle Chart

In ‘Going Round in Circles’ I returned to management models and one of my all time favourites: Fisher and Ury’s Circle Chart. I applied it to problem solving rather than, as they did, to negotiation.

Fisher and Ury are experts on conflict resolution, as is Morton Deutsch. In ‘Conflict: As simple as AEIOU’, I looked at a fabulously simple conflict resolution model that originated in Deutsch’s International Centre for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution.

11. Two Notable Events

Two notable events made the autumn memorable for Pocketblog: one sad and one happy.

  1. In ‘A Bigger Bite’ we marked Steve Jobs’ passing
  2. With ‘Three ways to get it wrong’, we marked our hundredth blog, by looking at one of the towering social psychologists of today, Daniel Kahneman

12. And finally, our most popular topic

Tuckman’s model for group formation has proved to be our most popular topic by far this year.  We have returned to it three times, each time looking at a particular facet:

  1. ‘Swift Trust: Why some teams don’t Storm’
  2. ‘Team Performance Beyond Tuckman’
  3. ‘Tuckman Plus’ is the first of two posts.  It is the last topic post of 2011 and its companion (‘Part 2: Transforming’) will be the first of 2012

So here’s the deal

  • Have a very merry and peaceful Christmas.
  • Have a very happy and healthy New Year.
  • Be good, have fun, stay safe, and prosper.

From all at Management Pocketbooks,
our colleagues at Teacher’s Pocketbooks too,
and from me particularly.

Mike

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The Apprentice and Five Levels of Leadership


One of the most compelling critiques of contemporary business leadership is Jim Collins’ ‘Good to Great in which he defines five levels of business leadership.

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Level 1 Leaders

… are Highly Capable people who make ‘productive contributions through talent, knowledge, skills and good work habits.’

Level 2 Leaders

… are Contributing Team Members who contribute ‘individual capabilities to the achievement of group objectives and works effectively with others in a group setting.’

Level 3 Leaders

… are Competent Managers who ‘organize people and resources toward the effective and efficient pursuit of predetermined objectives.’

Level 4 Leaders

… are Effective Leaders who ‘catalyse commitment to and vigorous pursuit of a clear and compelling vision, stimulating higher performance standards.’

Level 5 Leaders

… are Executives who ‘build enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.’

Personal Humility and Professional Will

Collins’ ‘paradoxical blend’ is not something we see in many Apprentice candidates. In fact most are at pains to describe themselves as charismatic, ruthless and ambitious.

Curiously, Level 5 Leaders are charismatic – but in a very different way. Their calm humility exudes a sense of wisdom and self control. They are ruthlessly determined, it is true, but with a commitment to integrity that means they take great trouble to be fair. And their ambition is not for themselves, but for their business.

Diligence and Details

Level 5 leaders are able to wrestle at length with the details, see through the gloss to the truth and work hard – relentlessly even – to build a business of lasting value. Their outward modesty – few were well known outside their industry – belied a ruthless advocacy for their business.

Built to Last’ was Collins’ earlier book (with Jerry Porras) about what made some companies great.

Collins concludes that each of the ‘good-to-great’ companies he studied was led by a Level 5 leader, but none of the less-successful companies he compared them with were.

The Apprentice: what level of leadership?

Until the Apprentice, one might have characterised Lord Sugar as a Level 5 Leader, but now he courts limelight in a way that Level 5 Leaders never would. Arguably though, he has built his business empire and created a property portfolio that meets all of his material needs and more, so it’s time to have fun.

But what message is he, through the needs of a prime-time TV reality show, sending to young business people? What levels of leadership do we see week after week?

I Leap to the Show’s Defence

Who knows how this series will end? But let’s step back a year and look at how the last series ended.

imageLast season’s winner (I hope this isn’t a spoiler for anyone still working through their over-full video collection) was Stella English. Far from the fluffy charisma bunny, Stella was accused by some peers as dull. But she knew how to focus on the business issues and – uncharacteristically for Apprentice candidates – could manage a team.

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Stella left school with no qualifications, but flourished in a Japanese bank that cannot possibly favour gobby managers with no substance and, interestingly, described herself as ‘like a dog with a bone. I can’t let go.’

Maybe Lord Sugar recognises the value of Level 5 Leadership after all.

That said…

Ellie Reed - The Apprentice Series 7As the voice-over and Lord S keep reminding viewers, this series is different. He is looking for an entrepreneur: not a manager. So he let calm and steady Ellie Reed (‘I’m just a nice person really, but I have got a dark side if somebody treats me badly’) go, alongside Level 0 Poseur Vincent.

Let’s keep watching.

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Management Pocketbooks the Candidates might Enjoy
… or just benefit from!

… hey! Maybe the people who get signed up for Series 8 should buy the whole DVD of 50 top Pocketbooks!

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More Apprentice?

We know that The Apprentice is not watched by everyone interested in management, so we won’t let the series take over your Pocketblog. If you are a fan, please do check out my own blog, where I aim to draw a management lesson from each episode, on the morning after.

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