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 Alastair Mitchell, the chief executive of Huddle, a cloud-based collaboration software company. He often applies what he calls “the big red bus test”: If a bus were about to run you over, he asks, what would be the one thing you’d regret not doing?
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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What were some early influences for you?
I learned a lot as a kid from my grandfather, who was an entrepreneur in construction. The Internet is considered the miracle thing now, but back in the ’50s and ’60s, concrete was one of the miracle things. He built concrete bridges, and all his sons went into the business. And he took the company public. I remember being 5 or 6 years old and he gave me shares in the company. I just thought that was very cool and very inspiring.
What did you study in college?
I studied engineering — designing ships and boats. Engineering is a great multilateral kind of training ground, because you learn math, science, coding, technology and business. It’s a full spectrum, and you learn to connect a whole bunch of things. You also meet interesting people designing boats and ships. Your classmates are either the sons of great shipping magnates who have come to learn the family business, or they’re America’s Cup sailors. I’ve got a bunch of very interesting friends.
And after college?
I did two dot-com start-ups coming out of college — one was at the height of the bubble, just before everything crashed — and I learned the importance of timing and luck. Then I worked for an established company, where I learned what works well.
What were some early management lessons for you?
I made the classic young-manager mistake of hiring somebody just like you, because you feel comfortable. They called one person I hired “Ali Light” and “Mini-Me.” I also learned all the lessons about being too vague or not strong enough or clear enough when you’re giving feedback. I had to learn how to empower people — knowing when to let them take risks and when not to criticize them too hard if things go wrong. You have to back them up and then say, “That didn’t work, so how are we going to improve it next time?”
You can lose that sense of empowerment quickly as companies grow. I find myself constantly reinforcing the message with my teams. I’ll say: “Look, what do you guys think? Forget what you were told. What do you think about this particular question or problem?”
You have to build command structures, which are very important for focus when you’re scaling. But you have to give people a sense of mission and a clear scope of what we do and don’t do and then allow people to be as entrepreneurial as they like within those guidelines.
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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.com that 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.