Book Review: How to lead like Richard Branson, from his book 'Losing My Virginity'

OK, this isn't actually a review. It's nine mini lessons in 'how to lead like Branson' culled from his book Losing My Virginity. The more  I read about him and hear about him, the more I think the rest of us over-complicate this leadership stuff. As he says, it's not as complicated and lofty as we like to think.

1. BRANSON ON SERVICE

“Whenever I see people getting a bad deal, I want to step in and do something about it. Of course, this is not pure altruism – there’s a profit to be made, too. But the difference is that I’m prepared to share more of the profit with the customer so that we’re both better off.

2. BRANSON ON CUSTOMERS

Whenever I’m on a flight, or a train or in a record store, I walk around and ask the people I meet for their ideas on how to improve the service. I write them down and, when I get home, I look through what I’ve written. If there’s a good idea, I pick up the phone and implement it.

My staff were maddened to hear that I had met a man on the airport bus who suggested that we offer onboard massages – and please could they organize it. They tease and call it ‘Richard’s Straw Poll Of One’, but time and again the extra services that Virgin offers have been suggested to us by customers. I don’t mind where the ideas come from as long as they make a difference.

3. BRANSON ON STAFF IDEAS

I also insist that we continually ask our staff for any suggestions they might have, and I try my hand at their jobs. When I tried pushing a trolley down the aisle of a jumbo, I found I crashed into everyone. When I talked to the crew about this they suggested we introduce a more waitress-style service and keep the trolleys to a minimum. As it turned out, by getting rid of trolleys altogether in Upper Class, we were able to use up some of the aisle space to provide the longest and largest seats in the air.

4. BRANSON ON PROFITS AS OUTCOME

Despite employing around 40,000 people, Virgin is not a big group – it’s a big brand made up of lots of small companies. Our priorities are the opposite of our large competitors’. Convention dictates that a company should look after its shareholders first, its customers next and last of all worry about its employees. Virgin does the opposite. For us, our employees matter most. It just seems common sense to me that if you start of with a happy well-motivated workforce you’re much more likely to have happy customers. And in due course the resulting profits will make your shareholders happy.

5. BRANSON AS THE REPRESENTATIVE CONSUMER

When it comes to setting up companies one of my advantages is that I don’t have a highly complicated view of business. When I think about which services I want to offer on Virgin Atlantic, I try to imagine whether my family and I would like to buy them for ourselves. Quite often it’s as simple as that. “

6. SMALL IS THE NEW BIG: GROWTH BY REPLICATION

“Convention also dictates that ‘big is beautiful’, but every time one of our ventures gets too big we divide it up into smaller units. I go to the deputy managing director, the deputy sales director and the deputy marketing director and say, ‘Congratulations. You’re now the MD, the sales director and the marketing director of a new company.’ Each time we’ve done this the people involved haven’t had much more work to do but necessarily they have a greater incentive to perform and a greater zest for their work. By the time we sold Virgin Music in 1992 we had as many as fifty subsidiary record companies, and not one of them had more than sixty employees.�

7. ORGANIC GROWTH

“The Virgin way has been to develop many different ventures and grow organically. For most of our companies, we have started from scratch rather than buying them ready-made. When it comes to setting up companies one of my advantages is that I don’t have a highly complicated view of business. When I think about which services I want to offer on Virgin Atlantic, I try to imagine whether my family and I would like to buy them for ourselves. Quite often it’s as simple as that.�

8. BRANSON, THE MAN WITH NO VISION

“The more diffuse the company becomes the more frequently I am asked about Virgin’s vision for the future. I tend to either avoid this question or answer it at great length, safe in the knowledge that I will give a different version next time I am asked. My vision for Virgin has never been rigid and changes constantly, just like the company itself. I have always lived my life by making lists: lists of people to call, lists of ideas, lists of companies to set up, lists of people who can make things happen. Each day I work through these lists and it is that sequence of calls that propels me forwards.�

9. BRANSON & STRUCTURE

“Virgin Money may appear to have been an incongruous departure for Virgin, the rock’n’roll company: it was a lateral leap in the same way it had been from records to airlines. But it was still all about service, value for money and offering a simple product. The vision I have for Virgin does not run along the orthodox lines of building up a company with a vast head office and a pyramid of command from a central board of directors. I am not saying that such a structure is wrong – far from it. It makes for formidable companies from Coca-Cola to Pearson to Microsoft. It is just that my mind doesn’t work like that. I am too informal, too restless, and I like to move on.�

Extracts from: Losing My Virginity, Richard Branson's autobiography