Copyright Haymarket Publishing LTD. Nov
2001
| [Headnote] |
| ANDREW DAVIDSON INTERVIEW |
| [Headnote] |
| When the profits of the once-mighty M&S took a
dive, so did the reputation of its ex-boss. Media attacks and now a new
book on his long reign have left him reeling. The charge: complacent,
bullying leadership at the firm he worked at for 45 years. How does he
plead? |
Sir Richard Greenbury is down but not out 'I am
upset,' he says, narrowing those watery blue eyes, 'and it does get under my
skin, but I have got my family and friends and, well, in a few days I will get
over it all.'
I wonder. For a man who only five years ago enjoyed a
reputation as one of the most admired businessmen in Britain, the past month or
so, maybe even the past two years, have been a bit of a shock. Since bundling
out of M&S, the company he gave most of his life to, he has watched it split
asunder, profits crashing, its good name kicked onto the shop floor. That's one
thing. The recent publication of a new book about M&S, and the resultant
publicity this autumn that has blamed Greenbury for the company's collapse, is
another. It has clearly rocked him to his core,
He is a big man, well over six feet, wide tummy,
spreading with age, who would - you might think - be able to take it. After all,
as is well documented, he used to dish it out. He was a whirlwind of aggression
as a manager, a man who headed M&S for eight years, during which time he
took the company to incomparable success, and back. Right now, at 65, he should
be enjoying his third year of semi-retirement: a time to help out the four kids
who he never saw much when he was working non-stop, a time to concentrate on the
10 grandchildren, too. I'd bet he is a pretty good grandad - just note the
extraordinary wooden wendy house given pride of place in his vast landscaped
garden at home.
He is also a relatively simple man, easily moved to
sentiment and clearly perplexed by the fickleness of the outside world. And by
'outside' I mean, of course, beyond Marks & Spencer, because after 45 years
at the company, that is Greenbury's normality.
When you ask him if he felt he was too controlling as
a boss, compared to other company leaders, if M&S's culture carried the
seeds of its own destruction, if he felt he mishandled other executives or the
press or the City, he is not really sure, as he knows no other company so well.
He may have sat as a non-executive director at British Gas and ICI and
LloydsTSB, but he was created by M&S, the company he joined at 17, and never
worked full-time anywhere else. He loved it and loves it, and is far more hurt
by criticisms that he damaged it than most people would understand. It consumes
him in a way you or I might believe is irrational.
He agrees to talk to MT because, I guess, he has a
lot to get off his chest. He picks me up at the little rural train station round
the corner from his Berkshire home. There he is, sitting in his sparklingly
clean blue Range Rover when I pull in, his distinctive white hair as spotless as
the upholstery. As he drives me off, he is so courteous that I am quite taken
aback - I am 45 minutes late after signal failure and missed connections. His
reputation for macho intolerance, especially with journalists, is sizable.
Perhaps he is now engaged in a little overdue bridge-building.
His home, behind tall metal gates, is a long, low,
beautiful house, built in the 1920s, set into a wooded slope with pines and oaks
up close, American-style. Round the back, facing south, a wide stone terrace
overlooks more landscaped woodland, lawns, swimming pool, tennis court, all
discreetly shrubbed. He walks me through the house and its myriad elegant
reception rooms. Every room we go in has a stack of framed photos: family and
football in his study, Mandela in the hall, royalty in the sitting room.
Greenbury eventually perches on a large pale sofa, just left of a conspicuously
placed picture of him shaking hands with the Queen.
It is, perhaps, the decor of someone who likes to
remind himself of what has been achieved. Greenbury, the fanatical sportsman who
went to Ealing County Grammar, the only child of a Geordie mum and Leeds dad who
split when he was a teenager, the short-tempered high achiever who sacrificed
his university chances and took a shop job to support his mother. And 40 years
later he ended up running the same shop. That takes some drive.
Greenbury looks perturbed, as if he can read my
thoughts, keen to move onto his agenda, not mine. I want to know what it feels
like to fall so heavily to earth, what lessons he can pass on; Greenbury, that
famous square jaw set in determination, wants to run through every item of
criticism that has aggravated him since 1999. 1 can tell he has a list in his
mind - he doesn't need paper as he seems to be counting them off as he goes,
fiddling with his fingers, his ferocious capacity for memorising and analysing
undimmed by the years.
Much of his anxiety stems from The Rise and Fall of
Marks & Spencer by Judi Bevan. The book, which combines a short corporate
history with a vivid account of the in-fighting that led to M&S's post-1998
profit collapse, sits heavily between us like an unwelcome guest. Greenbury is
clearly troubled by its genesis. He helped the author in her research, passed on
phone numbers of other directors and non-execs to interview, and gave his
approval to the project. He then finds the book is a compelling critique of his
blinkered management style, replete with unattributable quotes from the same
colleagues saying, not our fault, it was all Rick's. 'But I know the people, and
they've rung and told me that they spoke very highly of me...' It's just not, he
seems to be saying, fair.
Well, no, life isn't, and sometimes it kicks you
where it hurts. The general attitude of most I talk to about this is that
Greenbury should count himself lucky for the good years. He earned big money,
around L800,000 a year at the end, he enjoyed the plaudits; he should take the
brickbats with stoicism. As to the book, how can he have been so naive? Perhaps
he could not conceive that any of M&S's current problems were his fault?
He brushes that aside. Of course he made mistakes, he
says. In a complex business you do. 'The secret is to make more good decisions
than bad.'
He has, however, a counter-argument for every
accusation of mismanagement that has been levelled at him: that he quashed
debate within M&S, that he resisted innovation, that he bullied
subordinates, that he soured relations with the City and the press, that he
waltzed off at a crucial time to head a government committee because he wanted a
peerage, and that he failed to identify a suitable successor for his own job,
partly out of vanity. That is some list, and you can perhaps understand why he
is so agitated.
He argues that there were just two real problems
towards the end of his time at M&S: that the company, through a series of
serendipitous events, had got itself in a position where its success was so
great, it simply couldn't keep on at the same level of profitability; and that
the board had fatally delayed appointing his own successor. M&S's later
reaction to its growing problems, sacking staff, slashing suppliers, just made
the situation worse.
The saga of the succession row in 1998 - when finance
director Keith Oates publicly challenged the M&S board, asking them to give
him the CEO job he thought was already his - remains one of the worst bits of
corporate PR in living memory. Greenbury rushing back from business in India,
the board suddenly setting up a nominations committee to interview all possible
candidates. Analysts remarked that the company suddenly looked like a shambles
run by a shower.
So much has been written about it that it barely
needs rehashing, and Greenbury has already said he now regrets that he didn't
leave the company earlier. But no-one could have foreseen how Oates would later
act - 'Who else has ever behaved like that?' and his real error was leaving it
up to the board to find the successor. That, however, is how big companies are
supposed to run. 'I always said the board must choose who they wanted to lead
them and stuck to that religiously.'
Yet if they were that uncertain as to inside
candidates, couldn't they have picked an outsider? Greenbury hesitates. It is
known that they approached Sir Peter Davis, now chief executive of Sainsbury, to
become chairman, but he didn't impress. Greenbury says another name was in the
frame to be CEO: David Jones, boss of Next 'l discussed David with the board. He
had done a fantastic job at Next, but he was running a L1 billion clothing
business; we had L8 billion clothing plus food and household goods. We couldn't
see him coming in...'
A mistake?'On reflection, as we now know Peter
Salsbury was not up to the job, yes.'
Ouch. Greenbury says that if he has learnt one thing
from his friendship with Sir Alex Ferguson, Manchester United's manager, it is
that you do not criticise colleagues in public (what you say in private is
another matter, of course). He bends the rule for Salsbury - he is still angry
at what he did to the company in his brief reign as CEO at M&S after
Greenbury.
And the rest? There is barely space to recount how
Greenbury rebuts it all. Suffice to say that he never believed he was terrifying
other executives, he never had the time, for instance, to veto individual
clothing lines, nor does he think he mistreated the press and the City.
Certainly not in comparison to his predecessor at M&S, Lord Rayner, who
thought analysts were 'spivs' and wouldn't have them in the building. And he is
deeply hurt by the oft-used comment from 'an M&S director' that he 'couldn't
innovate his way out of a paper bag'. He has a fistful of examples of all the
innovations he ushered into M&S - new shops, new lines, new materials... I
virtually have to say, stop, enough.
As for his time chairing the ill-fated Greenbury
committee into executive remuneration, how could he refuse? M&S had a
history of working closely with the government of the day, he says, and at the
time, 1995, there was no sign of a sales crisis at M&S. Quite the reverse.
The point everyone misses about the Greenbury
committee, he continues, was that it made him a target. 'I bitterly regret
alienating the press as I did from 1996 onwards,' but, he says, the provocation
had become intolerable. 'They tried to get into this house in the boot of a car,
they went to every one of my children, my wife was pestered, my ex-wife was
pestered. When my daughter got married they sent along reporters and a
photographer... I was incensed!'
But many in the media and the City found him highly
abrasive even before then; his frequent letters of complaint to journalists
bordered on the boorish. Too blunt, he admits, but that was his style. He `gave
it to people straight, like his great hero, Harry Truman, the one-time retailer
who went on to become post-war American president. As for journalists'
interpretations that Greenbury was unable to take criticism, that he was chippy
about missing out on a full education, that he felt desperately insecure because
of his parents' divorce - he too divorced and remarried, only to go back to his
ex-wife.
'Much of that kind of psychiatric analysis is just
rubbish,' says Greenbury. `Rubbish! I had to learn to stand on my own feet early
in life, but so what? The world is full of successful people who didn't go to
university.'
At this stage, I think Greenbury protests too much.
Nestling behind his desk in his study, under the collection of Truman books and
Manchester United memorabilia, is a long line of videos from the TV series The
Sopranos. The tale of the bulky, befuddled New Jersey mobster, holding his gang
together while hiding weekly visits to a psychiatrist, is Greenbury's favourite
television programme. What am I to make of that? That he understands more about
psychological motivation and its insecurities than he is letting on? If so, he
is not admitting it. He simply cannot believe that his drive and style, which
took M&S to its highest-ever profit level, can have been so misrepresented.
Autocratic, no. A bully, never. Yes, he did push
colleagues hard on their ideas. `But my experience was that when people had the
courage to argue their case, they believed in it. Once I had been persuaded, I
would put my whole weight behind the policy.'
It is a style he says he learnt off Rayner and Simon
Marks, son of the store's founder, Michael Marks, and the real entrepreneur in
whose image the empire was built. For if every successful business is a
projection of the personality of its key driving force, M&S's systems and
style reflected the input of Marks junior, who dominated the company for 50
years.
Marks could be brutal with his immediate management
and had little time for outsiders, but was popular with his shop-floor staff - a
description that could fit just as well with Greenbury. Yet Marks was alert to
good advice. Others in M&S say that Greenbury just stopped listening when
the 1 billion profit mark was reached - hence the Oates fiasco - and that his
brusquely entrepreneurial style became unrealistic for a complex, 70,000--
employee plc.
He is certainly unimpressed by the changes that his
successor Peter Salsbury initiated. If the ship had been steadied, he argues,
M&S would have recovered from its 1998 sales slump. It had already embarked
on a 2 billion expansion programme which, although it dented profits, would have
paid off in the long run. 'Every retailer has a bad season, but the trick in
retailing is to put it quickly behind you and get back to core competencies.'
Look at Gap, he says, of which he is a huge admirer.
'They have had a bad year. I know they will rebound as certain as I am sitting
here. And I am absolutely certain that with a steady hand and core competencies,
M&S could have bounced back to 850 million profit.'
But can't he understand the pressure Salsbury was
under from the City and the press to make the company more responsive? `No, he
should have stood up to the press and the City. What was the rest of the board
doing? My criticism is that he dismantled two of the fundamental cornerstone
principles of the business: treatment of staff and relations with suppliers.'
It is no surprise, he adds acidly, that Salsbury
couldn't cope, and had to leave, He is careful not to pass comment on Luc
Vandevelde, M&S's present chairman, but nods approvingly when I mention the
company's new head of UK retailing, Roger Holmes, the former Kingfisher
executive.
He likes some of M&S's new range: there are signs
of 'green shoots' he says. 'I see them advertising beautiful, classic, all-wool
jumpers for L25.' That's what the customers want, he adds, not - taking a dig at
Salsbury's TV ads - naked ladies, size 16. Former colleagues tell him many of
the old processes are being reintroduced, and Holmes looks as though he has the
right feel for the business.
Has he spoken to Holmes? No, he says, but he'd like
to. Should old bosses be consulted? Isn't it better to cut the link?
'I kept on Derek Rayner as a consultant I wanted to
be able to go and speak to him. I used to have lunch with him at his home, he
used to come here, and I'd take his advice.'
You can tell he would love Holmes to call. He's
intrigued as to how the core problems are going to be addressed: getting
reliable products made more cheaply overseas, coping with a move away from the
old Baker Street head office (and away from M&S's flagship Marble Arch
store), sorting out what's to be done about the long tail of small stores that
make too much money on food but can't offer a full M&S range. And just from
watching the way Greenbury lights up when talking about the kind of products
M&S now carries, the blouses, the knitwear, you can see his instincts are
still fully engaged.
Does he go into M&S stores? 'I didn't go near one
for two years after I left, but I've been into my local one, the Camberley
store, about six times this year.' When he sees my surprise, he looks shamefaced
for a second, then counters: 'The girls at the Camberley store told my wife they
missed me.' And he beams like a beacon at the memory.
It must have been an extraordinary wrench for
Greenbury to pull himself away from the company he'd given so much to. As
another M&S lifer put it to me, the firm was everything to Greenbury, it had
formed him since he was 17, it was the lens through which he saw all, and it
made him the kingpin of UK plc.
No wonder he seems so bruised by recent events. He
has kept his non-executive jobs ticking over - he sits on the boards of Philips,
the electronics giant, and Electronic Boutique, the video games retailer, and is
still involved in the Israel-Britain Business Council, an organisation he
chaired at John Major's request in 1990s. But otherwise he had hoped to spend
most of his retirement basking in the glow of past achievements and watching the
tennis and football that he loves.
And now this. It permeates everything. He tells me a
story about attending Manchester United's extraordinary 5-3 win over Spurs at
White Hart Lane. Sitting in the director's dining room before the match,
Greenbury felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Sir Alex Ferguson, who had left his
team talk to give him a hug, and tell him not to let the buggers get him down.
Greenbury admits he was choked by the gesture, and recounting it to me while
Harry Borden snaps away, I can see his eyes well up slightly.
And that, he says, is what he is going to take from
all this - the simple loyalty of friends who have stood by him: Sir Alex, who he
adores, the former managers and directors of M&S who still regularly take
him out -'We were only at Wilton's last week; how can others say they hate me?'
- the old staff who have written letters of support. He is trying to remain
philosophical. 'We build people up, we knock them down,' says Greenbury. 'I
honestly believe that you are never as good as you are sometimes made out to be,
nor are you as bad as when people start to slaughter you. There's got to be
something in-between.'
Yet he seems rather humbled by the experience. Only
occasionally do flashes of the old abrasiveness return - when Harry keeps him
too long in one pose, for instance - and then he seems to bite it all back. Best
behaviour now.
Later, my tape recorder exhausted, Greenbury spent,
he drives me back to the station, nothing left to say. His reputation, he feels,
has been traduced. Yet surely it is still too early to judge: to see whether
M&S has a viable future on the high street, to understand where the root of
its decline was buried. I wonder whether it is the company or his own self-worth
that he is most concerned about. Maybe that's the point. For Greenbury, the
brilliant onecompany man, the two are probably inseparable.
GREENBURY IN A MINUTE
1936 Born in Carlisle, educated at Ealing County
Grammar School
1953 Joined MISS as junior management trainee
1962 Trainee merchandiser at M&S head office
1972 Appointed director at M&S
1978 Named joint managing director
1986 Becomes chief operating officer
1988 Chief executive, M&S
1991 Chairman, M&S, later knighted
1998 Retires from M&S
Sir Richard Greenbury is a non-executive director at
ICI, Unifi Inc USA, Electronic Boutique plc, and a member of the supervisory
board of Philips Electronics. He is also a patron of The Samaritans.
My Research