netrashetty
Netra Shetty
Bloomberg L.P. is a privately held financial software, media, and data company. Bloomberg makes up one third of the $16 billion global financial data market[3] with estimated revenue of $6.9 billion.[4] Bloomberg L.P. was founded by Michael Bloomberg (current Mayor of New York City) with the help of Thomas Secunda, Duncan MacMillan, and Charles Zegar in 1981 and a 30% ownership investment by Merrill Lynch.[5] The company provides financial software tools such as analytics and equity trading platform, data services and news to financial companies and organizations around the world through the Bloomberg Terminal (via its Bloomberg Professional Service)[6] , its core money-generating product. Many customers use only a small fraction of the machines' 30,146 functions.[7] Bloomberg L.P. has grown to include a global news service, including television, radio, the Internet and printed publications.
For a couple years I've been giving you snippets of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's leadership style. Sure he has a lot of detractors, but there's a lot that pretty much everyone must admit he does right. From an open and literally transparent visual workplace...
Bloomberg made City Hall "see-through." All meeting rooms had glass windows, so you could look inside. His desk and those of his staff were clustered in a room without walls to facilitate better and faster communication.
To voice of the customer - which requires the unfortunately unique skill in politics of actually knowing who the customer is...
Bloomberg sees New York City as a corporation, its citizens as customers, its sanitation workers, police officers, clerks, and deputy commissioners as talent. He is the chief executive.
"Good companies listen to their customers, No.1," he says. One month after being sworn in, Bloomberg proposed a 311 line that would allow New Yorkers to report everything from noise pollution to downed power lines. Since it launched in March, 2003, 311 has received 49 million calls. Emergency 911 traffic is down by 1 million calls since 311's inception, meaning first responders are being called to fewer non-emergencies.
As someone who also feels unrepresented by either major political party, I even thought he might make a decent presidential candidate. At least he would have had the experience of actually running an organization and bureaucracy and not be woefully over his head on day one. Fortunately, or unfortunately, he didn't take me up on that idea.
Last Friday Bloomberg was sworn in for his third term as Mayor of New York City. Third terms are usually bad news for both the elected and the constituents, and the effort and cost he had to incur to obtain a third term is probably not a good sign. Even if a guy has good ideas and good motivation, a rut is still often a rut. So we'll have to see.
But among his calls for a unique combination of fiscal prudence and social activism - which once again forces him into the independent category that I also share - he showed his penchant for management reform.
While repeating themes stressed in the past promoting volunteerism, immigration and efforts to save energy and reduce pollution, he also announced an experiment beginning next week, assigning each first deputy commissioner to a different agency in a three-week effort to reduce bureaucracy.
“We intend to break down the bureaucratic barriers that too often impede innovation, compromise customer service, and cost taxpayers money,” the city’s 108th mayor said. “This is a management challenge, and a unique opportunity for collaboration and innovation.” He also offered city aides his trademark first-day advice: “Don’t screw it up.”
I know many of us have contemplated similar programs of rotating department heads and even executives, but how many of us have swallowed the fear and actually done it? Cross-training among shop floor folks is common (in non-union shops unfortunately) and the benefits show nearly immediately. Besides flexibility, there is a better understanding of each others' issues and concerns which leads to improved communication and coordination. A different set of eyes also has the ability to see waste and opportunity where the blinders of experience may not.
So who wants to volunteer to be Quality Manager for a week or two? Anyone? If yours is like most organizations, that's one of those very difficult jobs that everyone beats up on yet everyone fears. Why? Perhaps that's an opportunity for improved understanding (and sympathy?) that would help the organization as a whole.
he Tao of Bloomberg
Despite his belief in the calming presence of fish tanks in the office, Bloomberg is one of the least Zen people imaginable—he loves material success and good red wine; one of his favorite movies is the Will Ferrell comedy “Old School.” But there is a duality to his management style that perhaps recalls the two Tzus: Sun Tzu, the general who wrote The Art of War, and Lao Tzu, the feudal court philosopher who wrote the Tao Te Ching.
On the one hand, there is Bloomberg the warrior who overpowers his political opponents; on the other there is the above-the-fray chief executive, calmly preaching compromise and conciliation.
The result is a city hypnotized, and an overwhelming reelection.
Lao Tzu might have anticipated Bloomberg's reelection campaign when he wrote, "The Master leads by … Preferring simplicity and freedom from desires, / avoiding the pitfalls of knowledge and wrong action. / For those who practice not-doing, / everything will fall into place."
There was an effortless momentum behind Bloomberg's $100 million dollar incumbent strategy, but dig below the surface and this is more than just the triumph of the technocrat. Bloomberg in fact has a broad philosophy that guides his decisions in office.
In an era of pop-psychology books on the leadership styles of everyone from Attila the Hun to Santa Claus, maybe it is time for a pamphlet-size collection of Bloomberg's management philosophy, sort of a “Tao of Bloomberg,” in seven parts. . . .
1. "Don't screw it up"
Great mayors cultivate catch-phrases that become shorthand for their respective New Yorks.
Rudy defiantly called the city "the capital of the world" when many doubted it. Dinkins saw us a multi-cultural "gorgeous mosaic." By asking "How'm I doing," Koch gave his face to what had been the ungovernable and impersonal city. Lindsay gravitated to the superficial glamour of "Fun City." LaGuardia famously said that "there is no Democrat or Republican way to clean the streets."
Bloomberg has "Don't screw it up."
This brusque advice to new staffers is more representative of his leadership style than it may at first sound. It captures the man's bottom-line driven lack of sentiment, his dry humor and his admitted "glass half full" view of life.
Bloomberg believes in setting broad targets, and then delegating the daily details. Accountability comes in the form of numbers: he is the accountant's son, the born statistician who wants all problems broken down for his analysis. The underling's goals are essentially negative—do what it takes and don't screw it up.
The boss doesn't care about the drama as long as the numbers are moving in the right direction. He understands that results matter far more than excuses—Abe Beame and David Dinkins may have been delightful dinner companions, but it can take only four years to screw up a city. And Bloomberg doesn't like being listed with losers.
2. "The rewards almost always go to those who outwork the others”
In a city of strivers, Bloomberg is our workaholic-in-chief.
This is a man who called a chapter of his book "I Love Mondays," writing that "Sunday night was my favorite because I knew when I awoke the next morning I'd have five full days of fun at the office."
Part of his personal romance with New York seems to be rooted in his years as a young single stockbroker. He brags, "I set new records in burning the candle at both ends.… Even now, decades later and a bit wiser, I still think the perfect day is one where I am hopelessly overscheduled."
3. "I know what I don't know"
In one of the book's stranger passages, Bloomberg proclaims, "I'm a human Beware of Dog sign. Programmers never know whether I really understand just as they don't know whether there's a pit bull behind that door." He knows what he doesn't know, and has a long history of hiring experts to compensate.
Case in point: Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, a man who'd done the job before, both in New York and at the Federal level as head of the Customs Department. Back in 2001, it was widely believed that in a post-Giuliani New York, crime rates would inevitably rise. But Kelly kept in place key elements of Giuliani's crime-fighting strategy such as the CompStat system, while adding counter-terror contacts from the CIA.
The results speak for themselves: Four years after the attacks of September 11th, New York remains the safest large city in America.
4. "Never look back"
In his book, Bloomberg describes himself as "a wealthy Democrat who has given consistently to my party" and then launches into a monologue about how "party allegiance" is "important." But once he left the Democrats he never looked back.
Because Bloomberg is not invested in partisan political debates he is free to govern above the fray. At a time when religious influence in politics is on the rise, Bloomberg remains defiantly secular—even questioning the wisdom of marriage, the political equivalent of apple pie.
There is likewise an engineer's detachment to his style of civic management: "Somebody has to bring us to a centralist consensus, acceptable to most, with a minimal imposition on those at the fringes. That is what politics is all about."
While Bloomberg may be a Republican in Name Only (“RINO”), conservative allegations that he is essentially a liberal democrat don't ring true either. The socialist-summer-camp crowd that was once the backbone of New York's liberal establishment would have viewed Bloomberg with the special contempt reserved for capitalist plutocrats.
In turn, Bloomberg has no patience for the anti-business instincts of the far-left: "You can hope the government tries to equalize with Robin Hood tax policies and throw some money your way. Unfortunately, every time it has been tried in the past, all went down to the lowest level—not up to the highest one. . . .
“The communists tried to eliminate any form of meritocracy for 70 years, and in addition to wrecking their economies, they literally starved 50 million people to death in the process." These are not the sentiments of a misty liberal, but of an unrepentant capitalist.
But Bloomberg does not share most businessmen's instinctive hatred of taxation, perhaps explaining why he did not lose much sleep over his property-tax hike. "Forget worrying over taxes. More people do more stupid things trying to avoid the inevitable than they can count. Our country gave you the opportunity—now pay back your share and get on with it."
5. “Go into contests with an advantage”
For all these more reflective philosophical traits, though, there's more of the hard-nosed general to Mayor Mike than his nasal New England accent and uncharismatic public persona would suggest. It brings to mind Sun Tzu's saying that "In war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory."
Bloomberg has said much the same: "We do not want fair fights. We want to go in contests with an advantage."
That's how he built Bloomberg, LLP. That's how he ran for mayor, twice, spending more than $150 million.
The man is an unsentimental strategist who picks battles he can win. He didn't blink in his effort to get former City Council minority leader Tom Ognibene booted from the Republican primary. He kept up a furious ad blitz against Fernando Ferrer, running up the numbers until the polls closed. Why? As Sun Tzu said, "Security against defeat implies defensive tactics; ability to defeat the enemy means taking the offensive."
Bloomberg bombarded every community with native-language ads and on-air testimonies from celebrity Democrats. His campaign spending may not win many points for sportsmanship, but who cares when history is written by the victors?
6. "Companies in the end need direction, not discussion"
The Bloomberg Administration has been lauded for its Democratic approach and apparent preference for consensus. But there is a pit bull in the bull pen.
"You can't run governments or companies successfully by polling or asking for suggestions," Bloomberg wrote. "Someone must have a vision and take others along, not the reverse."
Bloomberg manages change through negotiation if possible, imposition if necessary. Major policy goals that he deems as in the greater good—like banning smoking in bars without mentioning it in his first campaign—needed to be imperiously imposed to be eventually accepted. While such a decision flew in the face of New York's reputation as a haven for personal choice, polls show that the city ultimately came to support the measure.
7. "Loyalty is everything"
Beneath his Upper East Side civility, Bloomberg has cultivated a cut-throat aspect to his personality that is particularly evident in his treatise when he gets to the subject of corporate loyalty: "God forbid one of our people go to work for a competitor. Then we all heartily and cordially really do hope they fail. In their new job they have an avowed purpose to hurt their old coworkers. They've become bad people. Period. We have a loyalty to us. Leave and you're them."
In another passage, he described competitors as "plotting to take the food from our children's mouths."
If this sounds like Tony Soprano on a bender, recall that his administration has had admirably little turnover to date.
Ratchet up the risks?
So now, after being returned to office in an historic election, the mayor enters the realm of local legend—the self-made billionaire who achieved equally stratospheric success in public service. The question the mayor needs to answer for himself and the city is what he wants to do with all his freshly minted political capital.
It is time for Bloomberg to ratchet up the risks.
In his first term, he played it safe and was successful. Now he should be the aggressive reformer our city needs.
He owes fewer political debts than any mayor imaginable. The boy scout and the statistician, the general and the philosopher within Bloomberg must come together to reach beyond such essential but defensive goals as keeping crime on the decline. We need leadership, not just management.
That means taking on the tough underlying issues that always threaten to throw our city into civic chaos—the unsupportable size and cost of the city government, the clubhouse corruption that corrodes everything from judges to city contracts, the closed political system that makes New York below the mayor's office function like a one-party monopoly. Successors will be unlikely to have the political freedom or will to take on these issues.
For a couple years I've been giving you snippets of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's leadership style. Sure he has a lot of detractors, but there's a lot that pretty much everyone must admit he does right. From an open and literally transparent visual workplace...
Bloomberg made City Hall "see-through." All meeting rooms had glass windows, so you could look inside. His desk and those of his staff were clustered in a room without walls to facilitate better and faster communication.
To voice of the customer - which requires the unfortunately unique skill in politics of actually knowing who the customer is...
Bloomberg sees New York City as a corporation, its citizens as customers, its sanitation workers, police officers, clerks, and deputy commissioners as talent. He is the chief executive.
"Good companies listen to their customers, No.1," he says. One month after being sworn in, Bloomberg proposed a 311 line that would allow New Yorkers to report everything from noise pollution to downed power lines. Since it launched in March, 2003, 311 has received 49 million calls. Emergency 911 traffic is down by 1 million calls since 311's inception, meaning first responders are being called to fewer non-emergencies.
As someone who also feels unrepresented by either major political party, I even thought he might make a decent presidential candidate. At least he would have had the experience of actually running an organization and bureaucracy and not be woefully over his head on day one. Fortunately, or unfortunately, he didn't take me up on that idea.
Last Friday Bloomberg was sworn in for his third term as Mayor of New York City. Third terms are usually bad news for both the elected and the constituents, and the effort and cost he had to incur to obtain a third term is probably not a good sign. Even if a guy has good ideas and good motivation, a rut is still often a rut. So we'll have to see.
But among his calls for a unique combination of fiscal prudence and social activism - which once again forces him into the independent category that I also share - he showed his penchant for management reform.
While repeating themes stressed in the past promoting volunteerism, immigration and efforts to save energy and reduce pollution, he also announced an experiment beginning next week, assigning each first deputy commissioner to a different agency in a three-week effort to reduce bureaucracy.
“We intend to break down the bureaucratic barriers that too often impede innovation, compromise customer service, and cost taxpayers money,” the city’s 108th mayor said. “This is a management challenge, and a unique opportunity for collaboration and innovation.” He also offered city aides his trademark first-day advice: “Don’t screw it up.”
I know many of us have contemplated similar programs of rotating department heads and even executives, but how many of us have swallowed the fear and actually done it? Cross-training among shop floor folks is common (in non-union shops unfortunately) and the benefits show nearly immediately. Besides flexibility, there is a better understanding of each others' issues and concerns which leads to improved communication and coordination. A different set of eyes also has the ability to see waste and opportunity where the blinders of experience may not.
So who wants to volunteer to be Quality Manager for a week or two? Anyone? If yours is like most organizations, that's one of those very difficult jobs that everyone beats up on yet everyone fears. Why? Perhaps that's an opportunity for improved understanding (and sympathy?) that would help the organization as a whole.
he Tao of Bloomberg
Despite his belief in the calming presence of fish tanks in the office, Bloomberg is one of the least Zen people imaginable—he loves material success and good red wine; one of his favorite movies is the Will Ferrell comedy “Old School.” But there is a duality to his management style that perhaps recalls the two Tzus: Sun Tzu, the general who wrote The Art of War, and Lao Tzu, the feudal court philosopher who wrote the Tao Te Ching.
On the one hand, there is Bloomberg the warrior who overpowers his political opponents; on the other there is the above-the-fray chief executive, calmly preaching compromise and conciliation.
The result is a city hypnotized, and an overwhelming reelection.
Lao Tzu might have anticipated Bloomberg's reelection campaign when he wrote, "The Master leads by … Preferring simplicity and freedom from desires, / avoiding the pitfalls of knowledge and wrong action. / For those who practice not-doing, / everything will fall into place."
There was an effortless momentum behind Bloomberg's $100 million dollar incumbent strategy, but dig below the surface and this is more than just the triumph of the technocrat. Bloomberg in fact has a broad philosophy that guides his decisions in office.
In an era of pop-psychology books on the leadership styles of everyone from Attila the Hun to Santa Claus, maybe it is time for a pamphlet-size collection of Bloomberg's management philosophy, sort of a “Tao of Bloomberg,” in seven parts. . . .
1. "Don't screw it up"
Great mayors cultivate catch-phrases that become shorthand for their respective New Yorks.
Rudy defiantly called the city "the capital of the world" when many doubted it. Dinkins saw us a multi-cultural "gorgeous mosaic." By asking "How'm I doing," Koch gave his face to what had been the ungovernable and impersonal city. Lindsay gravitated to the superficial glamour of "Fun City." LaGuardia famously said that "there is no Democrat or Republican way to clean the streets."
Bloomberg has "Don't screw it up."
This brusque advice to new staffers is more representative of his leadership style than it may at first sound. It captures the man's bottom-line driven lack of sentiment, his dry humor and his admitted "glass half full" view of life.
Bloomberg believes in setting broad targets, and then delegating the daily details. Accountability comes in the form of numbers: he is the accountant's son, the born statistician who wants all problems broken down for his analysis. The underling's goals are essentially negative—do what it takes and don't screw it up.
The boss doesn't care about the drama as long as the numbers are moving in the right direction. He understands that results matter far more than excuses—Abe Beame and David Dinkins may have been delightful dinner companions, but it can take only four years to screw up a city. And Bloomberg doesn't like being listed with losers.
2. "The rewards almost always go to those who outwork the others”
In a city of strivers, Bloomberg is our workaholic-in-chief.
This is a man who called a chapter of his book "I Love Mondays," writing that "Sunday night was my favorite because I knew when I awoke the next morning I'd have five full days of fun at the office."
Part of his personal romance with New York seems to be rooted in his years as a young single stockbroker. He brags, "I set new records in burning the candle at both ends.… Even now, decades later and a bit wiser, I still think the perfect day is one where I am hopelessly overscheduled."
3. "I know what I don't know"
In one of the book's stranger passages, Bloomberg proclaims, "I'm a human Beware of Dog sign. Programmers never know whether I really understand just as they don't know whether there's a pit bull behind that door." He knows what he doesn't know, and has a long history of hiring experts to compensate.
Case in point: Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, a man who'd done the job before, both in New York and at the Federal level as head of the Customs Department. Back in 2001, it was widely believed that in a post-Giuliani New York, crime rates would inevitably rise. But Kelly kept in place key elements of Giuliani's crime-fighting strategy such as the CompStat system, while adding counter-terror contacts from the CIA.
The results speak for themselves: Four years after the attacks of September 11th, New York remains the safest large city in America.
4. "Never look back"
In his book, Bloomberg describes himself as "a wealthy Democrat who has given consistently to my party" and then launches into a monologue about how "party allegiance" is "important." But once he left the Democrats he never looked back.
Because Bloomberg is not invested in partisan political debates he is free to govern above the fray. At a time when religious influence in politics is on the rise, Bloomberg remains defiantly secular—even questioning the wisdom of marriage, the political equivalent of apple pie.
There is likewise an engineer's detachment to his style of civic management: "Somebody has to bring us to a centralist consensus, acceptable to most, with a minimal imposition on those at the fringes. That is what politics is all about."
While Bloomberg may be a Republican in Name Only (“RINO”), conservative allegations that he is essentially a liberal democrat don't ring true either. The socialist-summer-camp crowd that was once the backbone of New York's liberal establishment would have viewed Bloomberg with the special contempt reserved for capitalist plutocrats.
In turn, Bloomberg has no patience for the anti-business instincts of the far-left: "You can hope the government tries to equalize with Robin Hood tax policies and throw some money your way. Unfortunately, every time it has been tried in the past, all went down to the lowest level—not up to the highest one. . . .
“The communists tried to eliminate any form of meritocracy for 70 years, and in addition to wrecking their economies, they literally starved 50 million people to death in the process." These are not the sentiments of a misty liberal, but of an unrepentant capitalist.
But Bloomberg does not share most businessmen's instinctive hatred of taxation, perhaps explaining why he did not lose much sleep over his property-tax hike. "Forget worrying over taxes. More people do more stupid things trying to avoid the inevitable than they can count. Our country gave you the opportunity—now pay back your share and get on with it."
5. “Go into contests with an advantage”
For all these more reflective philosophical traits, though, there's more of the hard-nosed general to Mayor Mike than his nasal New England accent and uncharismatic public persona would suggest. It brings to mind Sun Tzu's saying that "In war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory."
Bloomberg has said much the same: "We do not want fair fights. We want to go in contests with an advantage."
That's how he built Bloomberg, LLP. That's how he ran for mayor, twice, spending more than $150 million.
The man is an unsentimental strategist who picks battles he can win. He didn't blink in his effort to get former City Council minority leader Tom Ognibene booted from the Republican primary. He kept up a furious ad blitz against Fernando Ferrer, running up the numbers until the polls closed. Why? As Sun Tzu said, "Security against defeat implies defensive tactics; ability to defeat the enemy means taking the offensive."
Bloomberg bombarded every community with native-language ads and on-air testimonies from celebrity Democrats. His campaign spending may not win many points for sportsmanship, but who cares when history is written by the victors?
6. "Companies in the end need direction, not discussion"
The Bloomberg Administration has been lauded for its Democratic approach and apparent preference for consensus. But there is a pit bull in the bull pen.
"You can't run governments or companies successfully by polling or asking for suggestions," Bloomberg wrote. "Someone must have a vision and take others along, not the reverse."
Bloomberg manages change through negotiation if possible, imposition if necessary. Major policy goals that he deems as in the greater good—like banning smoking in bars without mentioning it in his first campaign—needed to be imperiously imposed to be eventually accepted. While such a decision flew in the face of New York's reputation as a haven for personal choice, polls show that the city ultimately came to support the measure.
7. "Loyalty is everything"
Beneath his Upper East Side civility, Bloomberg has cultivated a cut-throat aspect to his personality that is particularly evident in his treatise when he gets to the subject of corporate loyalty: "God forbid one of our people go to work for a competitor. Then we all heartily and cordially really do hope they fail. In their new job they have an avowed purpose to hurt their old coworkers. They've become bad people. Period. We have a loyalty to us. Leave and you're them."
In another passage, he described competitors as "plotting to take the food from our children's mouths."
If this sounds like Tony Soprano on a bender, recall that his administration has had admirably little turnover to date.
Ratchet up the risks?
So now, after being returned to office in an historic election, the mayor enters the realm of local legend—the self-made billionaire who achieved equally stratospheric success in public service. The question the mayor needs to answer for himself and the city is what he wants to do with all his freshly minted political capital.
It is time for Bloomberg to ratchet up the risks.
In his first term, he played it safe and was successful. Now he should be the aggressive reformer our city needs.
He owes fewer political debts than any mayor imaginable. The boy scout and the statistician, the general and the philosopher within Bloomberg must come together to reach beyond such essential but defensive goals as keeping crime on the decline. We need leadership, not just management.
That means taking on the tough underlying issues that always threaten to throw our city into civic chaos—the unsupportable size and cost of the city government, the clubhouse corruption that corrodes everything from judges to city contracts, the closed political system that makes New York below the mayor's office function like a one-party monopoly. Successors will be unlikely to have the political freedom or will to take on these issues.