This week I spent a day listening to a retired CEO talk about what his life was like. Mostly I don't care what the super rich think about things, because, quite honestly, for the most part, the bore me. Everything is measured in money, happiness, success, life in general, kids - everything.
Not this guy. He worked his way up from college graduate to CEO and chairman of one of the largest companies in the world. He was funny and sweet, in that older man sort of way, and every now and then, I realized as he was speaking of his job as head of one of the worlds largest and most successful companies, he was stupid.
When I was taking a year off college a long time ago, I got a job in the heat of a Southern California summer working for a landscaping company. I was low man on the totem pole, which meant that I dug homes for one gallon plants. There were 5 of us on the crew, a foreman and 4 low men on totem pole worker bees. For one week we dug in the hardened Southern California soil, busting our backs to dig these holes, down long stretches of newly developed suburban developments. It was hell, but I dug as many, if not more perfect little holes as anyone else. I wanted to prove I could do it. One thing I noticed quickly, that one of the other workers was slow, stupid and unreliable. He could not, for the life of him, dig a hole that could handle a 1 gallon plant. He could not dig in a straight line, and if every hole had to be 2 feet apart, he would screw that up too. In no time, he was raised to assistant foreman and given a small tractor to drive around.
I was shocked. I could dig accurate, beautiful, deep holes all day long, and never complain. Then it dawned on me, I was too good at hole digging, there was no reason to reward me, I was competent and trustworthy. I could do the job. As the summer rolled on, I kept seeing the same thing happen, the slowest, stupidest or stonedest rose to new levels of management, or at least as high as management goes on a landscape crew. I stayed at hole digger, but a damn good hold digger.
It was a life lesson learning kind of summer. First I learned that sometimes, in many types of working environments, companies will keep the best workers at the lowest level, while elevating the stupidest. I also learned I hated working for idiots.
So, imagine my surprise to be sitting in a room with the former CEO of one of the most successful companies in the world, with a diverse product line and a variety of companies he purchased during his tenure, a real world leader. The strange thing, the CEO was a dummy. He could not remember why a certain company was purchased, or for how much. He could not remember if it was during his tenure that his company was fined over 100 million dollars by the United States Government. He was surprised to hear about it. Often, when asked a question on the well known history of his company, he would shrug and say, "well, I tried to keep my nose out of the day to day business."
Now, do not get me wrong, he seems to be a very sweet man. He is married, has some wonderful children, he cares for his family, his wife and his home. He is happy. What he also is is slow witted, kind of dumb and not really connected to the goings on around him. As I listened to him trying to explain his corporate leadership style "I lead, people listen, we get things done" and how acquiring other companies was often done against his will "I was in charge, that did not mean I had final say so," I kept thinking to myself of the incompetent hole digger from many years ago, mocking me from the seat of his tractor, as I sweated and winced in pain digging holes in the dry Southern California ground.
You do not have to be brilliant to be rewarded with leadership, you just have to be adequate, and certainly not the best.
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