Set the example
Abu-Ghazaleh doesn’t have to think long about where the financial troubles that plagued many of the nation’s former powerhouse
companies in late-2008 stemmed from. His own experience with
Fresh Del Monte taught him how important leadership integrity is
to long-term success.
“The whole thing transcends from the top down,” he says. “We
see it now in the market today, this whole turmoil with many of the
financial companies and other companies in things like the insurance industry. The problem is actually management and leadership, in my opinion. It’s greed in one aspect, it’s self-interest, it’s
short-term vision, so many factors play into this.”
Abu-Ghazaleh had that in mind when he began digging Fresh Del
Monte out from scandal. The basic first step you can take when
people — be they internal or external — are having trouble trusting a company’s management has to do with reining in your promises. It’s easy to set high expectations and tell investors, employees
and your customers that you are going to do several great things.
It’s much harder to live up to that. Since he first took over, Abu-Ghazaleh has been obsessed with keeping his promises. Rather
than promising people a full turnaround of the troubled company,
he first promised that the faith of investors and employees would
be rewarded with steady growth. While he could have promised an
immediate turnaround to bring money to the company and fire up
employees, he knows that would mean nothing two years down
the road if the company didn’t follow through.
“If you go back to all of our statements and my conference calls
over the last 12 years or so, you will see we have been very clear
in our message,” he says. “I was always saying that I will never try
to drive the stock myself through wishful thinking and through
ambiguous maneuvers or misstatements. For me, with all due
respect to all the analysts, the investors, to everybody, I will not do
something just to please the analyst or investor by saying or doing
things that will be counterproductive or not in the interest of the
shareholders. If you can start with that, you’ll always be successful at the end of the day.”
Beyond being careful about people’s expectations, Abu-Ghazaleh believes you can be the internal motivation for your
company by simply knocking out the idea that the boss is out of
touch with reality. Television bosses always show senior executives as detached people who come down from corporate to dictate orders before going golfing. It’s a stereotype, but you may be
helping to feed it. Remember that everyone is watching you, so if
you just told someone to cut expenses, you better have your own
expenses listed as No. 1-A on a public audit list.
“It’s the way you act, the way you behave, I mean your day-to-day
transaction of business and how you conduct yourself, how you
conduct your business,” he says. “You cannot tell people, ‘Save
money, don’t waste, don’t do that,’ if you are not an example of
this. This is just one thing. You cannot tell people to work hard, and
they see you taking vacations throughout the year on the beach
and different places in the world — you have to be an example.
And you cannot tell them to be honest when you are trying unlawful things or doing things that are not ethical.”
And Abu-Ghazaleh says his rules are there for businesses of every
size. Big or small, you have to know that everything you do is documented by your employees and weighed against what you ask them
to do.
“These are simple basic examples of conducting business or
even a lifestyle,” he says. “It’s simple. I believe that regardless of
how big, be it $10 billion or $50 billion or $1 billion or a $100 million operation, it’s just translates to the same way of conducting
the business.”
