Derk Sauer, Founder and Chairman of the Board, Independent Media Sanoma Magazines, believes his strongest leadership trait is the ability to create environments where creative people can be successful.
1. What is your strongest leadership trait?
My strongest leadership trait is the ability to understand what the interests of people are, how you deal with creative people. Our machines are our people, and ability to work with people is the most important thing.
2. But many people say that the usual ways of dealing with people do not correspond with the ways of dealing with creative people.
I think, you have to be much more flexible, and it's very important in work with creative people if you give them enough room to be creative and to be stars. Creative people are like big eagles and big personalities, and you want them to be these big eagles, you want them to shine, but at the same time you want them to run the business, and those two things are sometimes difficult to combine. I think, the most successful media executive is the one who, on one hand, can give people feeling that they are big eagles and they can do whatever they want, but at the same time, run the business in a business style manner. Because at the end it's the financial result that matters.
3. Do you have any examples of making people feel good meanwhile inspiring them to achieve outstanding results?
I strongly believe that saying that you are a boss is completely useless in the creative business. What you have to do is you have to earn respect of people. I always say to people on the management positions that the fact that they're managers means nothing. I say that you only are effective when people you work with have your respect, and because you're smarter, you're better, you have more creative ideas you will earn this leadership position. And that's a big difference. I'm not interested if someone is a boss here. If you're an editor-in-chief of "Vedomosti", you're an editor-in-chief because you know more than the reporters and you have earned their respect by working hard. And if you're an editor-in-chief of "Cosmopolitan", you have to be very creative throughout years and people want you to be an editor. This is how it works.
4. I believe, it's not just being better than others in everything, is it?
I'm not good in many things but I have the respect of my stuff because they know that I'm not stupid. Secondly, they know I always try to attract the strongest people around me. One of the biggest mistakes managers make always is to hire or attract weaker persons around them because they are afraid for their position. So what they do is they hire people that are not so strong so that they look like very smart which is very dumb. What I do is that I do the opposite. I always try to hire better people around me because if they are better than me we will have better results. I think one of the greatest things about management is that you always organize your company in a way that you delegate as much as you can. I always say: "A good manager should do nothing. It's a coach of a football team". I'm not on the field; my managers are on the field. The only thing I can do is try to get the best players on the field, and every manager should do that in his or her area of responsibility. They should see themselves as coaches. Now, the hard thing coaches have to do is sometimes they have to take people off the field because this is how it works. Team has to change all the time, it's a leaving organism. Of course this is sometimes difficult to tell to people "sorry but you cannot be a part of the team anymore. I'm bringing a new player". I find that the most important decision that managers take is to hire the best people around.
5. Do you motivate people by paying them more money than the competitors?
I strongly believe that money is not the best incentive. I always make sure that we don't pay more than competitors. In fact we normally pay less than our competitors because in this way I know for sure that people don't come here for money. If you just come for money, which is a big problem in Russia because a lot of people are only interested in money, you are not really seriously investing in your career. What you have seen of course over the last few years is that people jump from one job to another just because the next employer pays 500 or 1000$ more. I'm completely against that spirit. I want people who are interested in job, are interested in the work more than they are interested in money.
6. How you do it?
In Independent Media, I think we have different type of managers because most of our people here have been with us for quiet a while. Everyone who works at Independent Media in a management position gets offers all the time because we are the leader in the industry but most people don't even consider it because they know that they can make more money elsewhere but they like way we operate, as I just explained, the environment where people have so much freedom, and so much responsibility. You will not find it at many other companies.
7. Does this freedom mean that the coach is sitting aside?
No, but a good coach can with only a few words or just some simple advice help a team enormously. You have coaches which shout a lot and like players to be very disciplined. I don't believe in it. I use soccer example because, first of all, I'm a big football fan but, secondly, I also think it's a very good comparison. I do believe that management that is running a company has a lot to do with how youfor instance a football team because on the field the player in a split second has to decide where to pass the ball. And as a coach you cannot dictate that to a player. So, the players that have the most creative and the most independent mind are the most successful but of course within a certain framework.
8. How is it realized in practice in Independent Media?
It's a big company but actually it's a lot of small companies put together. If you take one title for instance say Cosmopolitan or Men's Health it's run like a small shop almost, there is a publisher, an editor. It's like they own it, this is how they run it like "it's mine". Of course we help them wherever we can but in the end it's like they have their own little shop. It's much nicer to be responsible for your own little company. They used to be told every morning "today you have to do this or you have to do that", it's not nice. In this company we don't have working hours; you can come, you can go whenever you want. I don't care. I'd rather have an editor sitting at home five-four days a week and have one brilliant idea that sells many magazines, than people sitting here from 9 till 5 just behind their desks doing nothing really brilliant. I look at the result and if magazine is successful or newspaper or project is successful whatever they do, how they do... I'm ok, it's fine with me. Do they work hard or not so hard I don't care.
9. Why is this approach productive?
I also don't believe that everyone have to work always. I strongly believe that creative people, at least if I look at myself, if I do something nice, I'm swimming or walk through the forest, I come up with the best ideas. If I sit in my office and people talk to me I'm not very creative. There is a lot of fear with managers. Managers are always afraid not to have control, afraid that people abuse them: "If you give people freedom they'll do things at my time, they'll steal, they'll do this"... I like to trust people. And my experience is, of course some people don't give the trust back to you but most people, the big majority will. I take the risk that maybe 5-10% indeed abuses this freedom but that 90% of them: (a) - have much more happy life, and (b) - are much more productive. In the end we are all winners. This is my philosophy of how to run a company.
10. How do you communicate this end result to your people?
Together actually we, every year or half a year depending on the project, together we make a budget, in fact I ask my people to make the budget, and say "ok, this is what we expect to do", and if I like it, it is fine. Or, I say you are too optimistic or you are not optimistic enough we change a little bit but it's their budget, there they go. As long as they stay within the budget they have total freedom, they can do whatever they want. I only get involved if they don't make the budget or they have other problems, then I ask: "What's going on, why...", and together we take a decision what to do. Management is extremely simple, and the problem is that so many managers think that it's difficult because they want absolute control everywhere. They always want control. It starts with people having to put these cards in the machine when they come into the office to check how many hours they work, and they have to do all the reports, and they have to do this and that - complete waist of time. If you give people trust, you agree on some principle ideas and principle numbers, and let people work, and then you can relax. I like to relax.
