netrashetty
Netra Shetty
Leadership Style at 3M Company : 3M Company (NYSE: MMM), formerly known as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation based in Maplewood, Minnesota, a suburb of St. Paul.
With over 79,000 employees, they produce over 55,000 products, including: adhesives, abrasives, laminates, passive fire protection, dental products, electronic materials, medical products, car care products (such as sun films, polish, wax, car shampoo, treatment for the exterior, interior and the under chassis rust protection)[2], electronic circuits and optical films.[3] 3M has operations in more than 60 countries – 29 international companies with manufacturing operations, and 35 with laboratories. 3M products are available for purchase through distributors and retailers in more than 200 countries, and many 3M products are available online directly from the company.
At the 3M Co. stories are a big deal. Collectively these stories form a larger narrative about how 3M became, and remains, one of America's premier corporations. Everything about how 3M is changing under new CEO James McNerney, the first outside leader in the company's 100-year history (Alldredge). 3M’s leadership under McNerney’s term focused on investment in people. Although the company leadership develops in new process, new techniques, and new growth, of all the pathways to growth, investing in our people is most important. The premise is very simple as McNerney expresses that if your people grow, your company will grow. The key: linking growth in individuals to those things that unlock energy and activities that our customers value. Clearly, McNerney has brought more centralized direction to a company that has always favored a laissez-faire approach of experimentation and doodling.
The mythological stories about Jim McNerney create the exciting climate to the company employees while his leadership brings 3M Company back the successful pathway (Alldredge). Becoming the leader of 3M, McNerney knows he's going up against decades of 3M stories in which naysay management is always the villain. However, McNerney's challenge will be to maintain the delicate counterpoise not only between the company's center and its periphery but also between efficiency and innovation. Although someone who are inside and outside company suspect the progressive approaches of McNerney, the success of the company in the competitive market in the United States proves the efficiency of his leadership. The story of a hero is written down.
Who is Jim McNerney and what is his leadership style?
James McNerney was the chairman and CEO of 3M which is a $20 billion global technology company from 2001 to 2005. He joined 3M after 19 years at the General Electric Company (Haeq). When McNerney took charge of the position of the company CEO, 3M was facing with several difficult situations when its stocks price fell down $80 - $90 per share in the market and the amount of shares sold at the market fluctuated about $ 1 million a day. Listening Clay Hoes, a stock analyst at American Express Financial Advisors in Minneapolis told about his hero, McNerney, “He's not afraid to do the hard things - cutting factories, reallocating resources from here to there. Those are decisions that have to be made on an economic basis." He is credited with beginning to turn around the company's performance with leading positions in electronics, telecommunications, industrial, consumer and office products, health care, safety and other businesses. As a result, under his lead the company stocks price significantly increase up to $147 per share in the market and the company shares sold at the market about $6 million a day. His success as a Business Week article claims that based on both a transactional and transformational leadership. We will analyze how he applied these approaches in 3M Company.
3M is the company that placed #1 is the annual Hay Group/CEO Magazine 2008 Best Companies for Leaders survey. They jumped from #15 in 2007, partly because of a change in the ranking methodology, but I suspect also because their leadership development efforts are starting to bear fruit.
Buckley became CEO at 3M in 2005, taking over from Jim McNerney. Prior to that, he had executive positions at British Rail, Emerson, and Brunswick Corporation, where he was CEO. Here’s an interview he did with CEO Magazine after they “won” the award.
Believe me, I’ve read these CEO interviews where they preach the virtues of leadership and leadership development. Some of them sound like they’re reading straight from a script that the head of HR wrote for them. I can sniff ‘em out…. this one is legit.
Here’s why I think so:
1. His approach to leadership development sounds like it’s based on his own experience (mostly at Emerson), as well as fundamentally sound leadership development practices. Sometimes I see one or the other… practices based on unique experiences that don’t transfer organizationally, or good theory that contradicts a CEOs personal reality.
2. He practices leadership development through changing assignments, but believes executives should stay in a job for about four years, in order to experience failure (the best teacher) and sustained success. His predecessor liked to move people around every year or so - musical chairs leadership development – which can be disruptive to the business and yield limited return on the development investment.
3. He invests his time and money in leadership development – not just lip service. He personally spends about one fifth of his time on talent management issues. He spends time teaching and expects others to. Twice a year, he spends 3-5 days reviewing talent.
Even while they are cutting jobs, 3M is not cutting back on leadership development. Why? “It's a little like having double vision. One eye has to focus on today. The other eye has got to focus on tomorrow. Another analogy I often use: My head's in the oven, and my feet are in ice water, but on average I feel OK. Organizations don't fail on averages. It's vital these days for companies to watch costs, and watch cash even more than costs. It's more important to invest to differentiate yourself from the competition. In a 2% recession, you have 98% of the business left. In a 5% recession you have 95% of the business left. You have to focus on what's left, not on what's gone. You're unlikely to do that well if you back off on training and leadership development.”
Here’s another awesome quote: “Years ago, when I worked at Brunswick, I was asked, "George, it's a tough time right now. Should we be spending money on training? What if these people leave the company?" My answer was, "What if we don't, and they stay?"
4. He’s not just focusing on his own replacement, or replacements for C positions. At 3M, they help leaders two to four levels below the CEO develop and transition into new roles. There’s the belief that every employee has the potential to be a leader, and that everyone is responsible for leadership development (not just HR).
5. He knows the difference between what can’t be developed (intelligence, morals) and what can (just about everything else).
At a former company, an HR VP asked me if I could have just ONE thing that would have the biggest impact on the development of our leaders, what would it be? I told her a new CEO. While it wasn’t the best political answer, it’s true. Without CEO commitment, nothing else matters. With it, even a mediocre systems and programs will work.
However, I suspect 3M had a pretty good system and programs before Buckley arrived, and they wouldn’t be as successful without the guidance of Sandy Tokach, the company’s vice president of talent development/organizational effectiveness. Behind every CEO and company that wins awards for leadership development, there’s always a supporting cast behind the scenes putting the infrastructure in place and making it all happen.
From the moment she first shook his hand in a receiving line after his arrival at 3M Margaret Alldredge, staff vice president, Leadership Development and Learning, knew Jim McNerney was passionate about developing leaders. McNerney was fresh from an enormously successful career at GE. He talked of implementing Six Sigma (a rigorous process designed to improve productivity, increase profits, and enhance customer service) and shared his view that Six Sigma was not only about process improvement but also a way to develop leaders rapidly. He also suggested that 3M might be ripe for the establishment of its own "Crotonville," GE's vaunted center for cultivating leadership talent. That first meeting set into motion the creation of a new, intense, and exciting approach to developing 3M's leaders.
One of Jim McNerney's first questions after arriving at 3M Company as its new CEO was, "What are we doing here to develop leaders?" The response from the 3M leadership development team convinced him the company could do more to develop high-potential talent. Almost immediately, he challenged the team to craft an intensive leadership development strategy that would rival that of his prior employer, GE. This article chronicles our team's progress to date, showing bow hard work, intense commitment, and creative thinking can lead to powerful results.
Setting the Stage
Within a month of Jim's arrival, we met with him to review our existing approach tn leadership development. In 3M's traditionally egalitarian culture, we had always focused on developing all of our people. The only special opportunities we offered to our high-potential leaders were a series of self-directed roundtables designed lot leaders at more senior levels across the company. Jim challenged us to focus more formally and openly on the identification and development of our highest potential leaders. Based on that challenge, and tying our work to Jim's evolving vision for 3M and to his newly defined expectations lot 3M leaders (see Exhibit 1), we set out to develop a new, accelerated strategy for developing our high-potential leadership talent.
We presented Jim with a first cut at our new leadership development strategy near the end of his second month in office. He liked what he saw in our initial proposal, but he also wanted to make a statement that reflected 3M's newfound commitment to leadership development. He proposed that we create a facility to house our leadership development efforts. We suggested modifying an existing R&D training center close to the executive offices. Jim liked both the facility and the five-minute proximity to 3M's executive offices, because he expected that he and his direct reports would do a great deal of teaching in the new center. Although we talked about the value of a "residential" facility for participants, business pressures suggested that a top-notch learning facility without residential accommodations was our best option. Nearby hotels were adequate to house participants traveling to the center from around the world.
With that, tile design goals for our Leadership Development Institute (LDI) were set. The plan was for the facility to be a top-notch learning center with all the modern amenities. It would be home to a number of accelerated leadership learning and development opportunities, including not only high-potential leadership development for 3M worldwide, but also for Six Sigma black belt and master black belt training and for leadership training for customers and distributors. Within three months we had gained full approval for the $3.2 million renovation project.
Leadership Attributes
While we were working on the new leadership development strategy and the LDI renovation proposal, McNerney and his direct reports took advantage of an independently organized offsite session to create a new set of leadership attributes for 3M (see Exhibit 2). These attributes are simple and clear, consistent with all of Jim's messages to the organization. Almost immediately, the attributes became the thread that was woven throughout all of our leadership development initiatives. They are held up as the core requirements of all leaders at 3M and are reinforced constantly by our senior leaders. We have worked to define each attribute for the "exempt" employee population, and individual assessment against the attributes has become an on-going process at 3M. We use this assessment as a major input into the performance appraisal process and have further integrated the attributes into all HR processes and our leadership development programs.
With over 79,000 employees, they produce over 55,000 products, including: adhesives, abrasives, laminates, passive fire protection, dental products, electronic materials, medical products, car care products (such as sun films, polish, wax, car shampoo, treatment for the exterior, interior and the under chassis rust protection)[2], electronic circuits and optical films.[3] 3M has operations in more than 60 countries – 29 international companies with manufacturing operations, and 35 with laboratories. 3M products are available for purchase through distributors and retailers in more than 200 countries, and many 3M products are available online directly from the company.
At the 3M Co. stories are a big deal. Collectively these stories form a larger narrative about how 3M became, and remains, one of America's premier corporations. Everything about how 3M is changing under new CEO James McNerney, the first outside leader in the company's 100-year history (Alldredge). 3M’s leadership under McNerney’s term focused on investment in people. Although the company leadership develops in new process, new techniques, and new growth, of all the pathways to growth, investing in our people is most important. The premise is very simple as McNerney expresses that if your people grow, your company will grow. The key: linking growth in individuals to those things that unlock energy and activities that our customers value. Clearly, McNerney has brought more centralized direction to a company that has always favored a laissez-faire approach of experimentation and doodling.
The mythological stories about Jim McNerney create the exciting climate to the company employees while his leadership brings 3M Company back the successful pathway (Alldredge). Becoming the leader of 3M, McNerney knows he's going up against decades of 3M stories in which naysay management is always the villain. However, McNerney's challenge will be to maintain the delicate counterpoise not only between the company's center and its periphery but also between efficiency and innovation. Although someone who are inside and outside company suspect the progressive approaches of McNerney, the success of the company in the competitive market in the United States proves the efficiency of his leadership. The story of a hero is written down.
Who is Jim McNerney and what is his leadership style?
James McNerney was the chairman and CEO of 3M which is a $20 billion global technology company from 2001 to 2005. He joined 3M after 19 years at the General Electric Company (Haeq). When McNerney took charge of the position of the company CEO, 3M was facing with several difficult situations when its stocks price fell down $80 - $90 per share in the market and the amount of shares sold at the market fluctuated about $ 1 million a day. Listening Clay Hoes, a stock analyst at American Express Financial Advisors in Minneapolis told about his hero, McNerney, “He's not afraid to do the hard things - cutting factories, reallocating resources from here to there. Those are decisions that have to be made on an economic basis." He is credited with beginning to turn around the company's performance with leading positions in electronics, telecommunications, industrial, consumer and office products, health care, safety and other businesses. As a result, under his lead the company stocks price significantly increase up to $147 per share in the market and the company shares sold at the market about $6 million a day. His success as a Business Week article claims that based on both a transactional and transformational leadership. We will analyze how he applied these approaches in 3M Company.
3M is the company that placed #1 is the annual Hay Group/CEO Magazine 2008 Best Companies for Leaders survey. They jumped from #15 in 2007, partly because of a change in the ranking methodology, but I suspect also because their leadership development efforts are starting to bear fruit.
Buckley became CEO at 3M in 2005, taking over from Jim McNerney. Prior to that, he had executive positions at British Rail, Emerson, and Brunswick Corporation, where he was CEO. Here’s an interview he did with CEO Magazine after they “won” the award.
Believe me, I’ve read these CEO interviews where they preach the virtues of leadership and leadership development. Some of them sound like they’re reading straight from a script that the head of HR wrote for them. I can sniff ‘em out…. this one is legit.
Here’s why I think so:
1. His approach to leadership development sounds like it’s based on his own experience (mostly at Emerson), as well as fundamentally sound leadership development practices. Sometimes I see one or the other… practices based on unique experiences that don’t transfer organizationally, or good theory that contradicts a CEOs personal reality.
2. He practices leadership development through changing assignments, but believes executives should stay in a job for about four years, in order to experience failure (the best teacher) and sustained success. His predecessor liked to move people around every year or so - musical chairs leadership development – which can be disruptive to the business and yield limited return on the development investment.
3. He invests his time and money in leadership development – not just lip service. He personally spends about one fifth of his time on talent management issues. He spends time teaching and expects others to. Twice a year, he spends 3-5 days reviewing talent.
Even while they are cutting jobs, 3M is not cutting back on leadership development. Why? “It's a little like having double vision. One eye has to focus on today. The other eye has got to focus on tomorrow. Another analogy I often use: My head's in the oven, and my feet are in ice water, but on average I feel OK. Organizations don't fail on averages. It's vital these days for companies to watch costs, and watch cash even more than costs. It's more important to invest to differentiate yourself from the competition. In a 2% recession, you have 98% of the business left. In a 5% recession you have 95% of the business left. You have to focus on what's left, not on what's gone. You're unlikely to do that well if you back off on training and leadership development.”
Here’s another awesome quote: “Years ago, when I worked at Brunswick, I was asked, "George, it's a tough time right now. Should we be spending money on training? What if these people leave the company?" My answer was, "What if we don't, and they stay?"
4. He’s not just focusing on his own replacement, or replacements for C positions. At 3M, they help leaders two to four levels below the CEO develop and transition into new roles. There’s the belief that every employee has the potential to be a leader, and that everyone is responsible for leadership development (not just HR).
5. He knows the difference between what can’t be developed (intelligence, morals) and what can (just about everything else).
At a former company, an HR VP asked me if I could have just ONE thing that would have the biggest impact on the development of our leaders, what would it be? I told her a new CEO. While it wasn’t the best political answer, it’s true. Without CEO commitment, nothing else matters. With it, even a mediocre systems and programs will work.
However, I suspect 3M had a pretty good system and programs before Buckley arrived, and they wouldn’t be as successful without the guidance of Sandy Tokach, the company’s vice president of talent development/organizational effectiveness. Behind every CEO and company that wins awards for leadership development, there’s always a supporting cast behind the scenes putting the infrastructure in place and making it all happen.
From the moment she first shook his hand in a receiving line after his arrival at 3M Margaret Alldredge, staff vice president, Leadership Development and Learning, knew Jim McNerney was passionate about developing leaders. McNerney was fresh from an enormously successful career at GE. He talked of implementing Six Sigma (a rigorous process designed to improve productivity, increase profits, and enhance customer service) and shared his view that Six Sigma was not only about process improvement but also a way to develop leaders rapidly. He also suggested that 3M might be ripe for the establishment of its own "Crotonville," GE's vaunted center for cultivating leadership talent. That first meeting set into motion the creation of a new, intense, and exciting approach to developing 3M's leaders.
One of Jim McNerney's first questions after arriving at 3M Company as its new CEO was, "What are we doing here to develop leaders?" The response from the 3M leadership development team convinced him the company could do more to develop high-potential talent. Almost immediately, he challenged the team to craft an intensive leadership development strategy that would rival that of his prior employer, GE. This article chronicles our team's progress to date, showing bow hard work, intense commitment, and creative thinking can lead to powerful results.
Setting the Stage
Within a month of Jim's arrival, we met with him to review our existing approach tn leadership development. In 3M's traditionally egalitarian culture, we had always focused on developing all of our people. The only special opportunities we offered to our high-potential leaders were a series of self-directed roundtables designed lot leaders at more senior levels across the company. Jim challenged us to focus more formally and openly on the identification and development of our highest potential leaders. Based on that challenge, and tying our work to Jim's evolving vision for 3M and to his newly defined expectations lot 3M leaders (see Exhibit 1), we set out to develop a new, accelerated strategy for developing our high-potential leadership talent.
We presented Jim with a first cut at our new leadership development strategy near the end of his second month in office. He liked what he saw in our initial proposal, but he also wanted to make a statement that reflected 3M's newfound commitment to leadership development. He proposed that we create a facility to house our leadership development efforts. We suggested modifying an existing R&D training center close to the executive offices. Jim liked both the facility and the five-minute proximity to 3M's executive offices, because he expected that he and his direct reports would do a great deal of teaching in the new center. Although we talked about the value of a "residential" facility for participants, business pressures suggested that a top-notch learning facility without residential accommodations was our best option. Nearby hotels were adequate to house participants traveling to the center from around the world.
With that, tile design goals for our Leadership Development Institute (LDI) were set. The plan was for the facility to be a top-notch learning center with all the modern amenities. It would be home to a number of accelerated leadership learning and development opportunities, including not only high-potential leadership development for 3M worldwide, but also for Six Sigma black belt and master black belt training and for leadership training for customers and distributors. Within three months we had gained full approval for the $3.2 million renovation project.
Leadership Attributes
While we were working on the new leadership development strategy and the LDI renovation proposal, McNerney and his direct reports took advantage of an independently organized offsite session to create a new set of leadership attributes for 3M (see Exhibit 2). These attributes are simple and clear, consistent with all of Jim's messages to the organization. Almost immediately, the attributes became the thread that was woven throughout all of our leadership development initiatives. They are held up as the core requirements of all leaders at 3M and are reinforced constantly by our senior leaders. We have worked to define each attribute for the "exempt" employee population, and individual assessment against the attributes has become an on-going process at 3M. We use this assessment as a major input into the performance appraisal process and have further integrated the attributes into all HR processes and our leadership development programs.
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