MANAGERS ON MANAGEMENT:WHEN YOU talk about management to Dr Eddie O'Connor, he's far more likely to quote Albert Einstein than Peter Drucker, Jack Welch or even the current guru, Gary Hamel, recently named "the world's most influential business thinker".
The reason is simple: Einstein interests him more. He was a scientist who dared to venture beyond the ordinary. He was a visionary. In O’Connor’s book, scientists and visionaries have the edge over management gurus any day.
Imagination, he says, is the key. “It’s always a matter of imagination. Einstein said that imagination is more important that knowledge and Einstein is right, by my lights. In terms of achievement, it’s the most important thing.”
A scientist with a master’s degree in industrial engineering and a doctorate in business administration, O’Connor was chief executive of Bord na Móna from 1987 to 1996. He set up Airtricity Holdings in 1997, building it, as he says himself, “from a business worth precisely zero to a company worth $1.8 billion in just 11 years”.
He was named World Energy Policy Leader by Scientific American magazine in 2003. His latest venture, Mainstream Renewable Power, was set up last year to build and operate wind energy, solar and ocean current plants in Europe, the United States, Australia and South America.
“Some people seem to think that I’m a visionary,” he offers.
“That’s what I often get described as, though it doesn’t even start to describe what’s really important . . .”
So does he see himself as a visionary when it comes to renewable energy? “I see myself as a problem-solver, I see myself as a delivery boy. My background has always been about delivering. That’s crucial, whatever the task in hand, but it’s also true to say that we dream big thoughts, yes.”
The manager as visionary in no way negates the idea of the manager as the charismatic do-or-die leader of a company.
“The job of a CEO is to keep everything in balance: suppliers, customers, staff, investors and owners, to keep them all moving in the same direction. It’s very much a holistic thing.
“A chief executive, as well as carrying out all the usual management functions, also needs to get the company’s strategy right. The problem is that the kind of person and talent needed to get the strategy right is not necessarily the same kind of person who makes a good leader. They’re two different skills. The point about management is that there’s no panacea. There’s no such creature as the perfect manager. Nobody has ever got it right indefinitely.
“On the other hand, every manager has particular strengths. So in choosing a new CEO, those who make the appointment know those strengths and surround their choice with people who compensate for his or her weaknesses. That’s management for you.
“And of course there are times – such as in the current economic climate – where management comes down to plain ordinary survival. In those circumstances, survival in business is a short-term thing, even a minute-by-minute thing.
“Every business in the world right now – no matter how many good ideas it has, no matter how big a genius its CEO is and no matter how locked on to the future is it – is in the same boat: it must survive. If it doesn’t survive, it won’t get to benefit from any of that other stuff . . .”
“So that’s the real world: as a manager, your job is to do what’s necessary to survive. You have several balls in the air. To be successful, you need to keep them there. And, in a sense, one of those balls is always survival.”
Does O’Connor never drop the balls then? “Of course,” he laughs, “I drop the balls all the time. The most important thing when you do is courage. We all make mistakes – though I tend not to call them mistakes, I call them ‘learning opportunities’.”
Next Week: Dr Maryann Valiulis, director of the Centre for Gender and Women’s Studies at TCD, on why ambitious women should be the norm in every organisation.petercluskey@yahoo.fr
Name:Dr Eddie O'Connor.
Company:Mainstream Renewable Power.
www.mainstreamrp.com
Job:Founder and chief executive.
Management advice:Don't drop the balls – management is multi-faceted and the role of a manager is to bring everything together.
