One of the problems that devastated me all my working life was that nobody would ever tell you what you had to do to get from here to there. So I worked out a ladder of success. You don't have to compete with anybody but yourself. It's in black and white. If you and your little group that you've recruited sell $3,600 a month for a certain number of months, then you win the use of a cream-colored Oldsmobile Firenza. Then you go on from there to a pink Regal, then to a pink Cadillac.
I feel like I'm doing something far more important than just selling cosmetics. I think we're building lives. It's incredible how a woman changes with Mary Kay. From a shy little wallflower who didn't know how to dress or do anything else, in six months she has more poise, she's personable, she looks pretty, and she has something to talk about. They are presidents, literally, of their own little companies, and they can make them as big as they want.
I often say I started with nine people, friends of mine, really, who just didn't have the nerve to say no. They didn't intend to stay around, but they were going to help me get it started. They were kind and sweet -- and last year, one of them made $325,000.
"If you want people to lead the parade, you can't fire everyone who leads it off course." -- John F. Akers
John Akers is president and CEO of IBM Corp.
When it comes to the subject of entrepreneurship, I may well be one of the least likely candidates you could find to lead the discussion. I have worked for only two organizations in my entire adult life, and would you believe that IBM is the smaller of the two? The other was the United States Navy, in which I was a carrier pilot for four years.
But I believe it is not only possible for a large company to be entrepreneurial -- it is essential. Small companies may have no choice but to behave in an entrepreneurial way. However, I believe that large companies also have no choice if they want to be able to survive in the long term.
Entrepreneurship is always a bet on people. That's just as true in a large corporation as it is in a small one. If the management of a large company wants to encourage entrepreneurship, it has to be willing to give other people the ball and let them run with it, knowing that they might fail; knowing that inevitably some of them will fail; and being ready to manage and digest that failure.
If you want people to step forward and lead the parade -- especially a parade into new and uncharted territory -- then you can't fire everyone who leads it slightly off course. You have to believe in people, and you have to give them more than one chance.
"Our stock man didn't show up today, so there were five cartons of suits that I opened, pulled out, and marked." -- Phil Kelly
Until 1983, Phil Kelly was chairman of Marshall Field's, by far the largest department-store chain in Chicago. Then Field's was purchased by BATUS Inc. A year ago, along with Joe Cecil, another former executive from Field's, Kelly opened the first Mallards, a men's clothing store. It is across the street from Field's.
I think every retailer believes that if he could start fresh, without the pressures of a corporate office, he might be happier.But the reality is that once you reach a certain level, it's very hard to give up that income unless you're desperately unhappy with what you're doing. I wasn't desperately unhappy; I loved Field's. But I wasn't given a choice. I guess BATUS Retail felt that I had led the business incorrectly.
I say "I guess," because frankly, nobody every really told me why they chose to bring in somebody else. I was well aware that it was going to happen, though, from rumors that they were interviewing for my replacement three or four months before I left. So I left. I was sorry to leave, but it wasn't the end of the world. Joe and I were able to start everything fresh, and if it works it will prove that some of the things I wanted to do at Field's were right.
It's different here; you aren't sitting in an office with people to delegate to. Take the day-to-day running of the operation. Either Joe or Ihave to be here at 6:30 on Wednesday mornings to let the cleaning crew in. Our stock man didn't show up today, so there were five cartons of suits that I opened, pulled out, and marked. Not the most thrilling thing in the world, but it's part of seeing it grow.
The problems we're going to have will come when we expand. How do you maintain standards when Joe and I aren't on the floor an hour or two each day? How do you make sure the salespeople remember service and value without the boss there? The only way we feel we can do that is to make a commitment to the people we hire as salespeople that as we grow, all our buyers, store managers, and merchants will come from our own pool of people. All of them will have proved on the floor that they understand, believe in, and can follow through on our concept of the business.
"I pictured a little industrial park with parking and shrubs in front." -- Francis Logan
Francis and Eileen Logan, both 40 years old, sit face-to-face at matching desks in a windowless office. He is chief operating officer, she is president, of Logan Engineering of New England Inc., the Waltham, Mass., sheet-metal shop they founded together in 1979.
Francis: I spoke before the Graduate School of Management at Boston College, here, with students all around, about being an entrepreneur. Cripes, was I nervous. I graduated from vocational school, and I'm up there talking to a business school.
