Have the courage to stick with a tough job – – A.G.Lafley

Chairman and CEO of P&G.

“My mom, a strong, proud Irish woman who died last year at 82, told me to have the courage of my convictions. She encouraged me to be independent and to be myself, and her advice was in my mind when I almost left P&G in my sixth year. It was 1982, and I decided to go to one of those boutique consulting firms in Connecticut. I even bought a house in Connecticut. I was getting out of P&G because I thought the bureaucracy was so stifling and the change was so slow. I was an associate–between a brand manager and a marketing director–and I was running a bunch of laundry brands. Steve Donovan was in charge of the soap business, and I handed him my resignation.
“He tore it up. I said to him, ‘I made a copy.’ He said, ‘Go home. Call me tonight.’ Which was smart, not to negotiate with me right there. When I called him that night, he said, ‘Don’t come into the office for the next week. Come and see me every night.’ So every night, I went to his home, and we’d have a beer or two. He kept working me over until he got to the root of my problem with P&G, which was the bureaucracy. He said, ‘You’re running away. You don’t have the guts to stay and change it. You’ll run from the next job too.’
“That really ticked me off. I stayed. And from then on, every time something didn’t work, I spoke up. I realized that you can make a difference if you speak up and set your mind to changing things.”

A reminder for us in these tough financial times.. :)

Remembering a monday email..

No personal battles strategy: Remember the story of President Lincoln scolding a young army officer for having a heated argument with an associate. “No man who is determined to make the most of himself,” said Lincoln, “can spare time for personal battles. Still less can he afford to take the effects, including the losing of temper and the loss of self-control. Give away larger things to which you have only an equal right; and give away lesser things even if you have a clear right to it.
It is better to give your path to a dog than be bitten by him in fighting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite.”

With due thanks to RealAcad(www.realacad.org)