November 17, 2005
Rob MacLellan
Remarks to Annual Commerce Banquet
Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba
On Leadership Thank you Leonard. Your Worship, Honourable
Minister, ladies and gentlemen. Congratulations to this evening's
award winners. Please drop your resumes off at the TD table before
you leave tonight. This is the third time I've been in Winnipeg
this year. On my last visit I had the pleasure of helping to launch
TD's Inuit sculpture exhibit, ItuKiagatta. I also got to give a big
cheque to Mrs. Asper for the new Human Rights Museum this city is
building. There sure is a lot happening here. I'm very honoured to be here tonight at an
event that rewards and celebrates leaders and leadership. Manitoba
has produced many outstanding Canadian leaders, including the man
who made this business school possible, Izzy Asper. I see many
current leaders from the community here tonight, and, of course,
quite a few of our leaders of tomorrow. I'm sure many of you have been spending more
time than usual thinking about leadership. The recent and many
failures of leadership in Canada and elsewhere have been regular
items on the news and in conversations. We can't seem to escape the stories of
political leaders being dishonest with their citizens and business
leaders betraying their shareholders. While we have many good
leaders around us, the bad ones have been getting the attention and
putting the question of leadership in the spotlight. It's not just the headlines that have me
worried. In a few years the giant Boomer cohort will be fading into
retirement, leaving a massive leadership gap. When they are gone,
who will lead? How can we ensure succession so that our
organizations continue to grow? What will the leaders of the future
look like? PriceWaterhouse Coopers UK recently asked
1000 business leaders in 25 countries who they'd have on their
dream board of directors. Winston Churchill and Napoleon Bonaparte
made the top ten. Who would you have thought of? The fact is, these
two usually make it onto lists of great leaders. But would they cut
it today? Winston Churchill was a great wartime leader
who inspired a nation under attack and eventually led them to
victory. But he was a heavy drinker, a maverick, and a loner. He
had no succession plan and was defeated in his last election. I'm
not sure he'd get the top job in today's team-player
environment. Napoleon? He was bold, courageous, a military
genius. But he all but obliterated the French army on a hopeless
campaign in Russia. And still he didn't think that was too high a
price to pay for a possible victory. He ended up with the right job
in the end - the leader of an island with no one else on
it. Now I know I'm not being entirely fair here,
for as Mark Twain said, "to arrive at a just estimate of a
renowned man's character, one must judge it by the standards of his
time, not ours." But I think he makes my point. Different
times call for different leaders. So what kind of leader would cut it today?
Remember, we're in Canada. In the US they've got the Terminator
running California, and people who watch TV think the Donald and
others like him are running corporate America. Is that what Canada
is looking for? I don't think so. In Canada we don't like our leaders too
flashy. Look what happened when Stockwell Day wore a wet suit in
public. Not good. Other countries have military heroes and great
presidents on their money. We mostly have birds. And not even the
flashy kind. The next generation of Canadian business
leaders is not going to look like the last one. It will be far more
diverse in many ways. Canada's population consists of over 200
ethnic cultures. Over a third of our population consists of
immigrants or the children of immigrants. Our future leaders, along
with their employees and customers, will come from a wide range of
backgrounds. In addition, the next generation of leaders
will be more educated, traveled and technologically saavy. It will
have learned (I hope) from the mistakes of the previous generation
and will not (I hope) want to repeat them. The next generation
believes in social responsibility and balance in life and not just
making money. And the challenges that generation will face will be
different too. We live in a world of constant change.
Business is becoming faster, more global, and more complex. As soon
as a trend becomes known as a trend, it's over. In the old days, a
leader might have said: We're going through a difficult period but
don't worry things will go back to normal soon. In this world and
the world of tomorrow, there is no
"normal." A big part of what's driving this is
technology which is evolving at such a rapid pace that we need
experts just to tell us what the newest best thing is. Technology
will only become more important as companies figure out how to
leverage it to stay competitive and improve their products and
services. In an ever-evolving post Enron/Worldcom
environment, regulation has become more all-encompassing and time
consuming. Public scrutiny has never been greater. Governance is
not only a priority it has become the priority for many. To these things you can add the rise of
corporate responsibility, ever more complicated labour issues, and
a list as long as your arm of geo-political and economic forces
that affect the business environment every day. Now that I've frightened all of you on to a
different career path, you're probably wondering what on earth are
the secrets of leadership. In the first place, there are no secrets. So
much has been written about leadership -- little of it has any
meaning. Walk into any bookstore and you can learn the leadership
methods of Attila the Hun, how to apply the ancient art of war to
the boardroom and other revelations written by hundreds of
"experts." Or, you can do what we at TD and other
organizations have been doing and think long and hard about what
leadership means to your organization, and, more importantly, how
to really bring it alive in your culture from one end to the
other. I think it's important for organizations to
create a leadership model that can actually work. The model has to
have principles that can be driven through the entire firm in order
to help not just group heads and managers but all employees to
think like leaders. If it's too complicated, too idealistic or too
bureaucratic, then it just won't get applied. At TD we thought if we defined what
leadership means to us and broke it down into simple principles
that everyone could apply, not only would it help us to identify
our leaders of tomorrow, but it would have a positive impact on our
entire culture. Our leadership profile isn't fancy but we
think it's workable. It has seven basic tenets: - Make an Impact: Get things done, focus on
what matters and never settle for average.
One of Manitoba's favourite sons and a great
leader, Izzy Asper made an impact. In a span of seven decades he
started a newspaper, had a career as a tax lawyer, wrote columns
for a national newspaper, ran the Liberal party of Manitoba, and
built the biggest media empire in Canada. He did this while giving
millions to support education, the arts, and healthcare in his
community. And while we certainly don't expect all of our employees
to accomplish quite that much, he's a good example of what hard
work and a disdain for mediocrity can do. - Build for the future: Have a vision and take
action to implement it. Develop tomorrow's leaders. Make sure you
have what you need to grow in the future.
Sam Walton built for the future. He started
out with a little store in Arkansas and then he discovered
discounting. Well business took off and Sam needed to grow. He got
in his little plane and flew around the countryside looking for
clusters of towns. Then from the air, he triangulated the perfect
intersection between them, landed the plane, found the owner and
bought the land. And another Wal-Mart was born. He was preparing
for the future growth of his company. - Inspire the will to win: Be passionate,
attract and retain great people, recognize and reward others, bring
out the best in individuals.
Inspire means "to breathe life
into." Gwyn Morgan, CEO of Encana breathed life into the
company when he formed it through a merger of Alberta Energy and
PanCanadian Energy in 2002. This month CTV and The National Post named
the Alberta native Canada's Outstanding CEO of the Year. Proud of
the talented and independent team he's put together, he tells
them: "Never play defence, always play
offence, just keep on building, achieving
I want this
company to be here and thriving long after I'm off sailing or
riding my bike up the mountain." - Work effectively in teams. Leverage the
strengths of the team. Trust your partners. Share a vision and be
driven to win.
Ask geese about teamwork. The reason geese
fly in V formation is because that shape reduces air resistance
making the journey easier for the geese in the back. The goose in
the lead takes the brunt but when he gets tired, he goes to the
wing and another goose takes his place. That honking? It's the team
encouraging the leader. Working together the team can fly 70%
further every day. Buffalo on the other hand don't do teamwork
very well. If the lead buffalo falls, the others just stand around
- easy targets for hunters. And if the leader goes over a cliff,
well
.Not a lot of buffalo around these days. Lots of
geese though. - Live transparency - don't round corners.
Admit to problems and fix them. Be authentic and know your
strengths and weaknesses.
Those of you who follow the fortunes of
Canadian banks know that there's a big black cloud that hovers over
Bay Street and moves from bank to bank. A few years ago that cloud
settled over TD for a little while. We had loan losses that led to
the first yearly loss in our history. What our leaders did set the
course for our future. They owned up to the losses, took
responsibility, apologized to shareholders and fixed the
problem. That sent a huge message. To the market it
said: You can always trust us to tell you the truth. And to our
employees it said: Taking responsibility for a problem and doing
your best to fix it is the right thing to do. - Show excellent judgment - take prudent
risks, make timely decisions using intelligence, experience and
common sense. Deal with the tough issues.
Banks are in the risk business. We can't make
money without it. But we can manage it at every level. On the
investment side, I caution people to avoid the "boiling
frog" syndrome. For those who don't know, the theory goes
that if you put a frog in boiling water, he'll hop right out. But
if you put him in cold water, and bring the water slowly to a boil,
the frog will not realize the water has become dangerous and he'll
boil to death - killed by complacency. In the world of money management, judgment is
really important. For example, if the Canadian dollar were to rise
from 65 cents to 85 cents overnight, everyone would immediately
focus on that issue. But if it happens slowly over a year, it's
easy to miss that such an important change has taken
place. - Demonstrate unwavering integrity - do the
right thing. Be ethical. Treat people with respect. Actions speak
louder than words.
About 18 months ago I had the good fortune to
have dinner with Tommy Franks, the great American general. A
college drop-out, he joined the U.S. army with no particular plan
in mind. Yet, over the years he rose up the ranks to become the
head of U.S. Central Command, and later led the attacks on
Afghanistan and Iraq. When I asked him how a buck Private made it
to the rank of general he told me it was because he never thought
he'd stay in the army. Even as he rose up the ranks, he figured
he'd be around for two or three years max and then move on. Because
he wasn't going to be around long, he didn't care what anyone
thought. In meetings, while other officers held back, afraid of
offending someone and suffering a career setback, Franks was always
blunt and truthful and not afraid to share his opinions. That
honesty and courage, the marks of a true leader, took him
far. Making an impact, building for the future,
inspiring the will to win, teamwork, transparency, judgment and
integrity -- we think these principles will help us achieve our
goals as an organization. They will help our current and future
leaders keep us competitive in a fast paced, ever-changing
world. We've just begun the hard work of driving
these principles through our entire organization. We talk about
leadership every chance we get, reinforce the principles through
training, coaching and mentoring programs, and measure our leaders
against them. We still have a way to go but we've made a good
start. These principles will not work for everybody
every day. And they may not work for you. In fact I wouldn't advise
any organization to just adopt these or anyone else's leadership
principles. Much of the benefit of creating a leadership
profile is in engaging your leaders and employees in the process of
thinking about leadership. It's a challenging and stimulating
exercise because it forces you to think deeply about what matters
to your own organization. Even better, it helps you as a group to
imagine what your company can be. If you take only one thing away from these
remarks I hope it's this: That on an individual level each of you
will commit some time to thinking about your own leadership
principles. What does your leadership profile look like? What
matters to you? How will you lead? And maybe, a generation from now, you too
will be on that top ten leaders list.
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