Setting clear and achievable goals
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So the important thing is to have a really thorough understanding of the issues facing a business, the environment within which it's operating, and, as a result of having an understanding of that environment, you can then set meaningful goals for the management.
Let me give you an example. If you have—as I do at the moment—a business that operates in more than 50 countries, it doesn't necessarily follow that each General Manager has exactly the same goal. For our business in China, for example, there is an enormous opportunity to grow: so the goal for the guy running the Chinese business unit is to look for new investments and ways of putting money to work. If you take the other end of the extreme—which in my case would be Switzerland, where the market is completely mature and satisfied—the goal there for the General Manager is about operating efficiency. So he is looking to do the same amount of business in a more effective way, whereas his Chinese counterpart is simply looking to do more business.
The lesson is that setting clear goals comes from a really thorough understanding of the business environment in which you are operating. Another important consideration—and it's a word that I don't think appears in English—is "do-ability"; by this I mean is a goal actually achievable? One of the worst things you can do is to say to an Operating Manager: "Here is your goal", and the Operating Manager then looks at you and says: "Such a thing is impossible." We are all familiar with that in our daily lives. If you say to a child: "I want you to jump over a ten-meter hurdle", the child obviously knows he can't do it and will be very upset. And in the same way, if you set—as people do sometimes—business goals that are wholly unachievable, it may make the Chief Executive feel very macho and tough that they've set people an enormous stretch target, but if the target is unachievable, the only result is going to be very disappointed managers and a general feeling of failure.
view textCompanies must respond to competition and change by deciding how best to use their resources to achieve their overall goals. Chief Executives lead the process by setting a clear, achievable strategy that the management must then execute.
Roger Parry
Chairman, Clear Channel International
Roger Parry spent the first seven years of his career as a reporter and producer, working for BBC and commercial television and radio.
He then became a consultant with McKinsey & Co, where he had a range of clients across marketing strategy and post-merger integration.
He moved on to become Development Director of Aegis Group. In this role he was part of the team that managed the successful restructuring and refinancing of Aegis in 1992.
He was Chief Executive of More Group from 1995 through to 1998, when it was acquired by Clear Channel.
Roger Parry was Chief Executive of Clear Channel International—the world's leading out-of-home media company operating across radio, outdoor advertising and live entertainment—for six years. He became Chairman in 2004.
He is also Chairman of Johnston Press, Future plc, and Mobile Streams.
