Richard Branson: Like a Virgin

For me there is nothing sadder than hearing someone being apologetic about the place where they are working. When people are proud to be associated with their company it generates a special level of advocacy and dedication that is a huge differentiator in a world full of mediocrity and indifference.

To be a good leader you have to be a great listener. Sure, you need to know your own mind, but there is no point in imposing your views on others without some debate and a degree of consensus. No one has a monopoly on good ideas or good advice.

Get out there, listen to people, draw people out and learn from them. As a leader you’ve also got to be extremely good at lavishing praise. Never openly criticise people; never lose your temper, and always be quick to applaud a job well done.

People flourish on praise. Usually they don’t need to be told when they’ve done wrong because most of the time they know it.

A good leader doesn’t get stuck behind a desk. I’ve never worked in an office – I’ve always worked from home – but I am constantly out and about, meeting people. It seems I am travelling all the time but I always have a notebook handy to jot down questions, concerns or good ideas.

If I’m on any of the Virgin airlines I always try hard to meet as many of the cabin crew and passengers as possible, and will usually come away with a dozen or more good suggestions or ideas. If I didn’t write them down I might remember only a few, but putting them in the infamous notebook means I remember them all. Talk to your staff and customers at every opportunity, listen to what they tell you, good and bad, and act on it.

Some might say, ‘Well, all that’s easy when you have a small business’, but at Virgin we strive to appoint company heads who have the same philosophy. That way we can run a large group of companies in the same way a small business owner runs a family business – keeping it proactive, responsive and friendly.

Oh yes: I still have to answer that first question as to the origin of the Virgin name. Sadly there’s no great sexy story to it as it was thought up on the fly. One night, I was chatting with a group of sixteen year old girls over a few drinks about a name for the record store. A bunch of ideas were bounced around, then, as we were all new to business, someone suggested Virgin. It smacked of new and fresh and at the time the word was still slightly risqué, so, thinking it would be an attention-grabber, we went with it.

But no matter how good the concept and/or brand name, even the best of them can fail at the first attempt. For example, in the early sixties, another group with a catchy name, the Beatles, were turned away by no fewer than seven record labels before they found one willing to take them on.

So, if you don’t survive, just remember that the majority of new businesses don’t make it and that some of the best lessons are usually learned from failure. And like the old song says, ‘Just pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again’.

Let’s get right to the point: good people are not just crucial to a business, they are the business!

Finding them, managing them, inspiring them and then holding on to them is one of the most important challenges a business leader faces, and your success or lack thereof plays a vital role in the long-term success and growth of your business.

What is a company but a collection of people? Take an airline – the aircraft it flies are pretty much the same as its rival’s. The interiors are usually much of a muchness and there is often only a slight difference in the entertainment and food. What sets one airline apart from its peers is its people (aka cabin crew) and their attitude towards their passengers. Our Virgin airline crews are smiling, cheerful and pleased to help, which leaves our passengers wanting to fly with us again.

It is no surprise that, like Virgin Atlantic before it, Virgin America, which flies within the United States, constantly sweeps the travel awards for service and quality. Its planes are new, with great interiors and entertainment; but above all, the great service of its crews is what wins so many plaudits.

People are your key asset. On the front lines of business, they can make or break a company. As I constantly remind our managers and other budding entrepreneurs, a true sense of pride in the business makes all the difference.

Even the best people need great leadership. A good leader must know the team, its strengths and weaknesses; socialising and listening to the team face to face is key. One of the most common reasons people leave a job is because they were not listened to. It’s rarely just about money, more often about frustration.

Like the proverbial bad apple, a bad leader can destroy a business very quickly. In small businesses this is easily apparent. On my island of Necker in the Caribbean, we once had a new general manager who tried to change the way things were done. Among other things he discouraged the staff from socialising over an occasional drink (or two!) with our guests, which rapidly soured the island’s historically collegial atmosphere. We had to step in to replace the manager and restore staff morale and the sense of management’s trust in them, which had been broken.

We also started some of our most successful businesses after pitches from our people. Virgin Blue, for instance, our Australian airline, (now known as Virgin Australia) was the brainchild of Brett Godfrey, an Aussie who had been working for Virgin in Brussels.

As only an Australian could, he came to me with his business plan written on a beer mat – outlining the start-up of a low-cost domestic carrier in Australia to take on Qantas and Ansett. In the intervening decade Brett has expanded Virgin Australia and its sister airlines to the United States, New Zealand, Thailand and Bali.

In other cases, we backed an outside team when we were sufficiently impressed by them to give them brand support and the space to go and build the new business themselves. Virgin Active, our health club chain, is a good example. Matthew Bucknall and Frank Reed came to me with the idea of a family-friendly health and fitness club in 1999. They had set up and sold a chain in the United Kingdom in the 1990s and wanted to do it again with the Virgin brand on the door.

We liked the idea and the management team, so we backed the rollout in the UK, and within two years were offered the opportunity (by Nelson Mandela himself!) to rescue a chain in South Africa. The Active team jumped at the chance and haven’t looked back since. We now have more than one hundred clubs in South Africa and another hundred and sixty in the UK, Australia, Italy, Spain and Portugal.

Trust is a key facet of any business, but how you deal with being let down once can also contribute to success. Are you willing to give people a second chance?

When I was running Virgin Records, a member of the talent-scouting team was stealing and selling boxes of records to local secondhand shops. Tipped off, I called him on it. He admitted everything. Rather than fire him, I gave him a severe warning and a second chance. Everyone messes up sometimes, I told him, and I said I expected him to learn from his mistake and get back to doing what he did best – finding artists. He went on to discover Culture Club, one of our biggest-selling artists of the 1980s.

We all slip up at some stage in our careers. I did. When I was just a teenager, I fell foul of British customs as I was trying to sneak duty-free records out of the UK. I escaped a criminal record by paying a fine and was given a second chance. I think this has made me much more accepting and forgiving of other people’s mistakes.