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John Bond: Skill, personality and luck


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John Bond
SPECIAL REPORT
YOUR SAY
E-mail us: Benjamin's Boardroom wants to hear from you. Email your questions and suggestions to CNN Financial Editor Todd Benjamin.

CNN Financial Editor Todd Benjamin speaks to the man in charge of the world's second largest bank.

John Bond, the chairman of HSBC, tried his hand at a number of jobs before climbing his way to the top of the financial sector. Bond believes his good fortune was simply the luck of the draw.

Benjamin: What in your view is the difference between a good leader and a great leader?

Bond: That's a very interesting question. Leadership comes in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. Different institutions need different types of leadership. I think you have to answer that question in the context of one company. I don't think you can generalize about leadership. HSBC has thousands of leaders; we have all sorts of people. We have 77 chief executives around the world. By the time you reach the top of HSBC you will have been chief executive for probably four of our major businesses and they all have different styles of leadership. If you're looking for common factors, I think you need a vision, I think you need to be able to communicate, I think you need emotional intelligence in today's world. But you have different styles of leadership in companies that are doing well as well as in than those that are doing badly.

Benjamin: How do the roles of chairman and chief executive differ?

Bond: Oh, clearly, the chairman is responsible for the strategy of the group, responsible for the board, responsible for corporate governance and probably the lead spokesman for the organization. The chief executive is responsible for the day-to-day performance of the business, the annual operating plans, the key managerial appointments, and for making sure the businesses which are under performing are worked on until they perform.

Benjamin: Describe your management style -- hands on and detailed or big picture?

Bond: I wouldn't regard myself as somebody who is detail-oriented, but I am certainly active all day, everyday. I'm not a remote person as far as HSBC is concerned. I think my main strategy is to surround myself with people who are smarter than I am and I've by and large been successful in doing that over the years...and it's a wonderful way to be.

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Todd Benjamin and John Bond

Benjamin: Can you have too many smart people at the top of your organization?

Bond: Impossible. And my main responsibility is to make sure the next generation of leadership and management is better than my generation and I can assure you... that is the case in HSBC.

Benjamin: What makes these people potentially great leaders?

Bond: I think they all have the skills. You need inter-personal skills. You need, as I say, to have a vision of where a company's going, to be able to communicate that vision. To be able to make your colleagues feel enthusiastic and proud of where they work. People want to be part of a successful team and I think it's our duty to deliver that for our colleagues around the world.

Benjamin: What do you think is the best way to motivate people?

Bond: Well, I think you must motivate them on the quality of the organization they work for. It can't just be a biding war and top-dollar. I think remuneration is important but it shouldn't be the be-all and end-all of motivation. The motivation is to work for a quality company that does business with quality clients in a quality way. And that's what we aspire to in HSBC.

Benjamin: Why did you decide not to go to university and what was interesting to you about banking at that time?

Bond: Well, university turned me down. I have to put the record straight. I tried to get into university and I failed. And I went to school in America on an exchange program and I got a job cleaning decks on a ship. So I went through Asia, and I wanted to go back to Asia, that was the main reason that I found my way to the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. It was the desire to go back to live and work in Asia that led me to HSBC.

Benjamin: What made you go into banking instead of something else?

Bond: Well banking was the medium to get back to Asia. It was as simple as that. I looked for a job that would take me to Asia and it was financial services that I found.

Benjamin: Did starting at the bottom make a difference? What did you do before becoming a trainee?

Bond: I've worked in a bar I've been on a yacht crew. I've done all sorts of different jobs in my life. I think the interesting thing about the way my career evolved was I've done nearly everything there is to do in a bank. The only thing I haven't done is write a computer program and I think it's in our shareholders interest we keep it that way. But today, people with degrees we would handle in a totally different way. The induction program has changed dramatically in HSBC and so it should.

Benjamin: And you literally worked your way up from being a trainee. Why do you think you made it all the way to the top?

Bond: Luck... that simple. I didn't set out to end up where I am today. I think it's sheer good fortune. Something to do with the year you were born, something to do with where you were at a given time, in your career. I think its... I can't attribute it, I often think about it, to anything other than luck.

Benjamin: Are you being perhaps overly modest?

Bond: Not at all, I'm being honest.

Benjamin: Do you think you were good at politics?

Bond: I'm a hopeless politician; let me get the record straight on that. I loathe company politics and there's not much politics around HSBC. Politicians don't survive here very long.

Benjamin: What do you think is the biggest mistake that most chief executives make?

Bond: Losing touch with the shop floor, losing touch with the clients, not being in direct contact with the people that make a business tick, which is the customers and your colleagues and your colleagues who interact with your customers. I think I know personally the top 200 clients of HSBC and I'm constantly down talking to my colleagues who look after our clients on the counter.

Benjamin: You're a big reader of biographies. Who are your favorite people and why?

Bond: I admire people who do things I know I couldn't do and at the moment, people who climb the highest mountains in the world, a particular interest of mine. But at various points in time I admire some of the teachers who lead schools in very difficult environments. They have immense courage; they do a job that I know I couldn't do. So I tend to admire people who do things that I know I couldn't do and unfortunately I find there's a huge amount of them in the world.

Benjamin: How would you describe your own personality?

Bond: Well, I think I'm somebody who doesn't enjoy social occasions per se, but I enjoy people, so I'm much better on one-to-one relationships than I am at making my presence felt at cocktail parties.

Benjamin: One of your colleagues in high school in California was David Crosby, the musician, correct?

Bond: He was in the class below me. Absolutely. I ran into him in a New York hotel about a year ago. I recognized him but I don't think he recognized me.

Benjamin: What is it about America or American culture that you find fascinating?

Bond: Well, arriving in America as an 18-year-old student in 1959, it had immense confidence, immense can-do, huge space, energy as a country. I was captivated by it and I'm still captivated by it.

Benjamin: Does any other place move you in the same way? Is China on the same level?

Bond: Oh I think what's going on in China today is absolutely fascinating. It's going to alter, I think, the pattern of economics and politics in the world in a very, very significant way. But every country is interesting to me. Every human being is of interest to me. Its not that it's America alone. Most of the countries I've been to in the world, I've lived and worked in six different countries, have provided fascinating experiences for me.

Benjamin: What do you want your legacy to be?

Bond: On this planet, my children... people very soon forget you when you leave the job you're in business.

Benjamin: What do you attribute your success to?

Bond: Luck.


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