The ABCs of Leadership Steve Robinson
By Lisa R. Williams -- Supply Chain Management Review, 1/1/2005
It's been said that leadership is the spirit within a company. Certainly, that's been evident throughout Steve Robinson's career. Whether working as the vice president of supply chain at Wal-Mart, as head of product marketing at i2 Technologies, or in his current job as president and CEO of Air Road Express, Robinson has infused a spirit of success into every organization with which he's been associated.
In his 30-plus years of logistics and supply chain accomplishment, Robinson has developed an individualized leadership style that at once produces top operating results and earns widespread respect. That leadership style is grounded in a set of principles as simple as ABC—achievement, buy-in, and clarity. It entails nurturing the aspirations of high achievement within yourself and others, gaining the buy-in and consensus from your team, and increasing the clarity into what needs to be accomplished within your organization. Yet while the principles may be simple, executing against them is anything but. That's where Steve Robinson's leadership skills really come into play.
Determined to Achieve
Robinson learned the value of having aspirations from his parents. He recalls growing up poor in a tough inner-city neighborhood of Cleveland. Unlike many of the other boys his age, Robinson's heroes were not on the football field or basketball court. Instead, they were sitting across from him at the dinner table. "Both my parents worked from sun up to sun down," he says. "My father had an amazing work ethic, and my mother was the most influential person in my life. My mother taught me the value of setting goals and aiming high. She emphasized continuous learning and demonstrated the virtues of resilience and determination."
While the Robinson family worked hard, they could not be considered prosperous in the material sense. Yet the young Robinson never truly felt poor, until one life-changing experience at school. After Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, Robinson and his classmates were told to bring a quarter to watch a movie about King's life. "Since my parents barely had the busfare to get to work," he recalls, "I did not have the 25 cents for the movie. When the teacher asked me for the money, I told her I couldn't afford the quarter to watch the movie. She didn't believe me and called me a liar."
Those words stung, affecting Robinson on a deep level. "Later, the teacher escorted the rest of the class to the movie, turned off the lights, and left me in the empty, dark classroom," he says. That day he realized that feeling poor was not about having money but about having no options. Armed with this insight, he was determined to never feel poor again.
The Importance of Buy-In
Perhaps this early experience explains why Robinson relates so well to the needs of his people. As with all good leaders, he innately knows how to tap into the potential within individuals. He's able to connect with them to gain their buy-in and motivate them to meet and exceed goals. It's part of a philosophy that seeks individual and organizational alignment. Robinson explains: "My mission is to find people who want to learn and whose personal goals and skills line up with the opportunities and needs of the company...and then I get out of their way."
Robinson has his own way of identifying those people, which he illustrates through the following scenario: Let's say that there are two people up for a position, call them Manager A and Manager B. Manager A has always received outstanding ratings from his supervisors and peers. Manager B's ratings have been good but not outstanding. Seems like an easy choice, right?
"Not necessarily," answers Robinson. "You need to look beyond the individual ratings to the overall performance of the team. Manager B's team may have achieved superior performance, but at some cost to her individual success. I strongly believe there simply is no winning unless the entire team wins. You need to strike a balance between individual and team success. I attribute much of my success as a leader to being able to find people who understand this."
Robinson says that he gained this perspective during his early work experiences. "Working in unionized LTL (less-than-truckload) and small package environments," he recalls, "I noticed management and nonmanagement didn't truly communicate. I observed some fairly poor approaches to working with people." He contrasts this environment to what he found at Wal-Mart. "Wal-Mart is an amazing organization and a real boot camp for leadership. Wal-Mart showed me another way. At Wal-Mart, each and every employee regardless of background or position can make a contribution and is considered a key part of the team. It's an organization that truly understands the balance of individual and team success."
Increasing Clarity
Robinson has found that people make the greatest contributions when they are clear about objectives. That requires clarity across these four dimensions:
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Clarity of vision—articulating the vision and direction for the company in a manner everyone can understand and act on.
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Clarity of purpose—explaining why the vision, goals, or objectives are important to the company and how individuals can align themselves to affect overall performance and gain personal success.
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Clarity of measurement systems—monitoring progress on key metrics.
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Clarity of roles and goals—ensuring that the right people are performing the right jobs.
The Leader as Coach
Robinson applies the "ABC" principles in his bottom-up approach to leadership. "I set the vision, ask the team how to get there, and then we jointly measure our progress," he says. And since everyone has the same playbook, people can monitor their own progress. Robinson also successfully applies the techniques prescribed in Ken Blanchard's modern-day classic, The One Minute Manager. He spends one minute a day praising or reprimanding each of his people so that they can stay on course toward reaching goals.
Coaching, in fact, is a core component of Robinson's leadership tool kit. Recognizing that everyone is different, he takes a highly individualized approach to this activity. "It is important for everyone to reach their personal and professional goals," he says. "Teamwork is critical, but it is equally important that I lead people as individuals, which is where coaching comes in." As a leader who coaches, he can guide the team to victory, give direction for self-improvement, and share in the celebrations.
Robinson's very personal and approachable leadership style stems from valuing people, life, and opportunity. At the age of 29, he was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness; in fact, at one point Robinson was advised to get his "affairs in order." "I survived it," he relates, "But I learned two very profound lessons. First, to always focus on what is most important—the critical path. Second, when I came face to face with my own personal vulnerabilities, to surround myself with people who complement me. After all, I am not the only tool in the shed."
Steve Robinson's spirited leadership has made an indelible impact on the many organizations he has led. His ability to overcome poverty, adversity, and a terminal diagnosis shows his personal strength. His ability to use personal experiences to connect with others, set an expansive vision, clearly articulate that vision, and encourage people to exceed expectations is the hallmark of a great leader.
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