- The New Superleadership
- Charles C. Manz ; Henry P. Sims
- 2594字
- 2021-03-31 21:17:29
Dennis Bakke of
AES Corporation
Ken A. Smith
Dennis Bakke, cofounder and CEO of AES Corporation, is widely considered to be among today’s most successful corporate leaders. Together with Roger Sant, Bakke founded AES as an international independent power company in 1981 with the mission to serve the world’s need for electricity by offering clean, safe, and reliable power in a socially responsible way.
While the operating and financial performance of AES has been remarkable, Bakke would argue that his greater success lies in the people of AES. Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Business Week, and others have called Bakke one of the most “enlightened” corporate leaders of the modern era, a role model for those who are committed to developing and empowering others. We call him a “SuperLeader.”
FROM PERSONAL TO CORPORATE VALUES
Bakke is a SuperLeader whose leadership is rooted in two primary beliefs that predate the founding of AES. First, he believes that businesses do not exist primarily to make money; they exist to serve. Says Bakke, “The purpose of business and the purpose of AES [is] stewarding resources in order to meet a need in society. You start with that premise. If you don’t start with that premise, none of this stuff makes sense.”
Second, people matter. They have desires and skills that can and should be developed. So, says Bakke, “People development is almost as high a purpose as meeting a need in society.”
THE PERFORMANCE OF AES
AES currently has operations in 24 countries with 146 power plants in operation or under construction, yielding a combined capacity of 52,000 megawatts of electricity. The distribution business, which represents 39 percent of revenues, sells electricity to approximately 15 million consumers around the world including commercial, industrial, governmental and residential customers. Capitalizing on recent moves toward privatization and deregulation of electric utilities, in 1999 AES had a portfolio of 165 active new business ideas in over 50 countries.
AES has pursued a strategy of operating excellence, resulting in high standards of operation and leadership in environmental matters associated with independent power production. On average,AES operates its worldwide power plants at 60 percent of the permitted U.S. emission levels, thereby exceeding the federal performance standards mandated for such plants under the Clean Air Act. AES has also offset carbon dioxide emissions by funding projects such as the planting of trees in Guatemala and the preservation of forest land in Paraguay. In 1999,AES voluntarily made a risky $32 million investment to develop the largest selective catalytic reduction reactor ever built on a coal-fired boiler, which reduced nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions in its New York plant by 90 percent. AES has also established a better-than-average safety record in its industry.
AES went public in 1991 and is now included in the S&P 500. In 1999, the company generated $3.3 billion in revenues on $21 billion in assets. By early 2000, its market value reached $17.7 billion. The company has ranked on Fortune’s list of America’s 100 fastest-growing companies. By any standard, Bakke has created a successful business enterprise.
“People can be trusted
to do the right thing.”
Bakke is articulate about the connection between this philosophy and his deeply held spiritual beliefs. He believes that people are spiritual beings with inherent, individual worth. People are special and unique; they are creative, accountable, and trustworthy. But Bakke also recognizes that people are fallible, so forgiveness and reconciliation are necessary dimensions of human interaction. Thus, Bakke desires to engage the whole person in the business enterprise and treat mistakes as learning opportunities. AES’s nonhierarchical structure clearly reflects this.
Finally, Bakke believes that stewardship of the earth and its resources for the benefit of all is a primary responsibility of mankind. The company’s commitment to social responsibility is a logical result.
Bakke’s commitment to the value of people also derives from his experience of strong personal relationships between members of AES’s founding team, which predate the founding of the company. Bakke worked as Roger Sant’s deputy at the Federal Energy Administration from 1974 to 1976, and then at the Energy Productivity Center at Carnegie-Mellon University from 1977 to 1981. Sant then served as AES’s founding CEO, with Bakke filling the roles of president and chief operating officer. During these years Bakke observed Sant’s commitment to developing those around him, and personally benefited from Sant’s mentoring. The experience led Bakke to the conclusion that relationships are key to fostering individual growth; they are fundamental to effective SuperLeadership. Says Bakke, “Our goal was to build a company that we ourselves would want to work in.”
Bakke’s personal philosophy is clearly reflected in AES’s four core values, which are:
To act with integrity
To be fair
To have fun
To be socially responsible
Bakke is quick to point out that these are “shared” values, originally articulated by the founders and officers; they are not exclusively his own creation. Nevertheless, he views his primary role as CEO and leader to be communicating and holding the company to these values. Says Bakke, “The only thing that we hold tightly as to what has to be done are the four values.”
Bakke describes integrity as “ … it fits together as a whole …wholeness, completeness.” In practice this means that the things AES people say and do in all parts of the company should fit together with truth and consistency. “The main thing we do is ask the question,’What did we commit?’” Bakke explains. “We have a rule here that says, ’Whoever is the senior person at any meeting’—I don’t care if you’ve been here one day or ten years—’can commit the company.’ That’s almost unheard of, because nobody is ever given authority to commit their company… unless you’re at the CEO level, and sometimes I’m not so sure about that.” But at AES, people engaged in negotiation can commit the company, and they know the company will back them up.
Fairness means treating its people, customers, suppliers, stockholders, governments, and the communities in which AES operates fairly. Defining what is fair is often difficult, but the main point is that the company believes it is helpful to question routinely the relative fairness of alternative courses of action. This means that AES does not try to get the most out of each negotiation or transaction to the detriment of others. Bakke challenges his people to ask, “Is it fair? Would I feel as good on the other side of the table as I feel on this side of the table about the outcome of this meeting, or this decision, with my employee or supervisor or customer?”
The third value is fun. “If it isn’t fun we don’t want it,” says Bakke. “We either want to quit or change something that we’re doing.” Bakke wants the people AES employs, and those with whom the company interacts, to have fun in their work. He elaborates: “By fun we don’t mean party fun. We’re talking about creating an environment where people can use their gifts and skills productively to help meet a need in society and thereby enjoy the time spent at AES.” What is “fun” is that people are fully engaged. “It’s that creative environment where people can thrive and become stars…. It’s where you’re trying to make other people stars,” says Bakke. “We can break down the barriers so folks can use those wonderful gifts and skills that they’ve been given or acquired along the way. That’s what people really find fun. And that’s what we’re trying to do.”
The fourth value is social responsibility. “We see ourselves as a citizen of the world,” says Bakke. This value presumes that AES has a responsibility to be involved in projects that provide social benefits, such as lower costs to customers, a high degree of safety and reliability, increased employment, and a cleaner environment. “We try to do things that you’d like your neighbor to do.”
MODELING AND ENCOURAGING SUPERLEADERSHIP
AES’s values, and Dennis Bakke’s personal leadership, focus on people. Whether being responsive to needs of people outside the company (e.g., social responsibility) or AES’s own (e.g., fun), the focus is on giving people the opportunity to develop and lead themselves.
Modeling Self-Leadership
An important aspect of Bakke’s leadership is modeling self-leadership behaviors for the organization. One process through which this is done has been annual visits to the plants by the corporation’s top executives. “Every officer has to go once a year to one plant for a week,” says Bakke. “It’s partly symbolic, partly it’s a tremendous time to get to know some of the folks.” An important part of the symbolism is that senior managers interact with employees in a way that demonstrates their similar values and oneness of purpose.
It was during his early plant visits that Bakke observed that people throughout the company have the same motivations and the same concerns. So Bakke asked, “Why are [people in the plants] being managed in a different way from what we do in Arlington? Why are the maintenance people all here in their own group, and office people in another? And here are operators, and the operators can’t do any maintenance? Maintenance people have to come and do these kinds of things? It’s the old union thing, where you hold the plug and I’ll plug it in. I said,’Why do we do that?’”
Bakke elaborates, “One guy was complaining,’Well, you know, maintenance guys never do this. They never get it done. I put the work order in and it never gets done. And they wouldn’t let us do it. And they …’ I started asking, ‘Well, who in the world are” They? “‘ ‘Well, uh … the guys in Arlington,’ or ‘the people in the administration building,’ or ‘the plant manager.’ People very seldom could tell you who ‘they’ were, but it was somebody out there. Somebody other than themselves was responsible for their job and making them helpless.”
So AES came up with an “Anti-They” campaign to communicate the kind of self-responsible behavior the company needed. “Everyone had a great time with it,” says Bakke. “Anti-They. The big international symbol,’They’ with a line through it…. A guy in the control room would say,’Well, they won’t. They don’t care. They don’t want to do this.’ We’d say,’ Who’s they?’ Now they do it to each other, trying to get people to say we.”
Needless to say, these executive visits
to the plant are highly symbolic.
The campaign against “they” is one outgrowth of the annual visit to plants by senior managers. Each executive voluntarily spends at least one week at a specific operating plant—not to review or receive briefings, but to participate in the everyday activities of the plant by carrying out the work assigned to a specific job. Each executive takes on at least one job per day, and some of these jobs can be fairly rough or dirty. The impact of these visits is significant. It conveys the notion that each job is important, and that no one is too good to work at any job—no matter how rough or dirty it is. It also evokes a strong sense of loyalty, commitment, and a sense of ownership throughout the company. In addition to membership in their immediate work team, each employee feels a part of the larger organizational team. And knowing where one fits in is fundamental to being able to lead oneself.
Fostering Self-Leadership
To foster self-leadership, Bakke has sought to move AES employees from hourly wages to salaried positions. By 1998, 50 percent of AES employees were salaried, but Bakke is working toward the day when there won’t be any hourly workers anywhere in the world. According to Bakke, “When you pay someone a salary and make them eligible for bonuses and stock ownership, you are saying, ’Our assumptions about you are no different from those we have about the plant leader.You can and should bring your brainpower and soul—your whole person—to work.’” In effect the company is saying, “You are a part of this organization; you have the same worth as everyone else.”
Bakke also desires that people take responsibility for their own career development. One way to do this is to provide opportunities for job rotation. Bakke recalls: “The example of Pete Norgeot’s career with us is a good case in point. Before joining our Thames plant in Connecticut, he was a heavy-machine operator. His first assignment with us was as a member of the fuel-handling team. He stayed with that team for six months, then shifted to the water treatment team, and then to the boiler team. For three years, he basically went from group to group. He studied all the technical books he could—we have manuals on every aspect of our operation, and you can use them to help prepare for the qualification exams that you must pass before you can work in an area. After spending three years at Thames, he learned of an opportunity in our Medway plant in England, and he took it. After a few years, he was selected to be the plant manager at our new Barry facility in Wales.”
The idea of taking responsibility for your own career, making the effort to develop yourself and being compensated accordingly, is consistent with AES’s definition of “fun” as a value. Treating employees as salaried professionals and providing them opportunities for development are but two of the ways Bakke seeks to foster self-management.
Summary
Thus far we have seen that Dennis Bakke, as a SuperLeader, personally models self-leadership and fosters self-leadership in others. His motivation comes from the personal philosophy that businesses exist to meet a need in society, and that people are valuable and should be developed. This philosophy has in turn given rise to a set of shared company values that delineate how AES conducts its business.
Leadership requires that one be clear on direction and be able to motivate others to its pursuit. SuperLeadership, however, requires transfer of ownership of direction and motivation to those engaged in the pursuit, such that they lead themselves. For Bakke,AES’s shared values are a primary mechanism for this transfer of ownership. Later in the book we will revisit Dennis Bakke and AES Corporation to review other aspects of SuperLeadership in action.