Adam Bryant conducts interviews of senior-level executives that appear in his “Corner Office” column each week in the SundayBusiness section of The New York Times. Here are a few insights provided during an interview of Barney Harford, CEO of Orbitz, who says he likes “T-shaped individuals — people who can go really deep in their particular area of expertise, and also go really broad and have that kind of curiosity about the overall organization and how their particular piece of the pie fits into it.”
To read the complete interview as well as Bryant’s interviews of other executives, please click here.
Photo credit: Earl Wilson/The New York Times
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Were you in leadership roles when you were younger?
I grew up in the U.K. I wouldn’t say I was in leadership roles, but I certainly started following my passions pretty early on. I became a freelance photographer, and I would shoot photographs for a bunch of newspapers starting at the age of 13. I did that through college.
And what did you study in college?
I studied physics, geology and the history and philosophy of science. I remember how a friend who was a philosophy major said to me, “What are you going to go do?” I really had no idea what I was going to go do. Close to graduation, I interviewed at Mars Confectionery and got to the final selection round. A couple of weeks later, I got a rejection letter.
I followed up to find out why not, and they told me that I asked too many questions, and that maybe I’d be better going into consulting. Which is what I did. I probably worked on 20 different projects in my first three years. At a young age, you get exposed to different strategies, and you learn how different companies and industries work. I think it helped develop my intuition. I’m pretty good at seeing around corners.
What were some early lessons about leadership for you?
I worked in consulting at first but eventually joined Expedia when it was still a part of Microsoft, and worked in a product strategy role. These jobs are very influential but you don’t have many people reporting to you. I always say that it’s easy to lead people when you’re managing them, because you can use carrots and sticks. The hard thing to do is to lead and inspire them when you’re not managing them.
To be successful, an organization has to foster creativity and innovation at all levels. A big part of that is helping people learn about other parts of the organization so that they can connect the dots between what’s going on in their area and what’s going on elsewhere, and then use those insights to improve the way we do things.
If you rely only on executives to spot opportunities, you miss out on so much potential. That’s why I like “T-shaped” individuals — people who can go really deep in their particular area of expertise, and also go really broad and have that kind of curiosity about the overall organization and how their particular piece of the pie fits into it. You want people who have the curiosity to find out how the other parts of the company work.
If you can push that down through an organization, you just get a force multiplier in terms of innovation. For us, it’s all about creating this culture of openness where you share information. We have weekly newsletters that talk about everything that’s going on in the company. And every week or two, there’ll be another email that’s a one- or two-page deep dive on a different part of the business. If you put in the time to read them, you can get up to speed on the organization very quickly. We find that facilitates people making those connections.
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Adam Bryant, deputy national editor of The New York Times, oversees coverage of education issues, military affairs, law, and works with reporters in many of the Times’ domestic bureaus. He also conducts interviews with CEOs and other leaders for Corner Office, a weekly feature in the SundayBusiness section and on nytimes.comthat he started in March 2009. In his book, The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed, (Times Books), he analyzes the broader lessons that emerge from his interviews with more than 70 leaders. To read an excerpt, please click here.
His more recent book, Quick and Nimble: Lessons from Leading CEOs on How to Create a Culture of Innovation, was also also published by Times Books (January 2014). To contact him, please click here.