Executive Spotlight: Bob McDonald - P&G's Chief Operating Officer

Bob McDonald, current Chief Operating Officer of Procter & Gamble, was 11 years old when he first wrote to his Congressman to apply to West Point. Since then, McDonald has demonstrated a record of being driven, eventually graduating from West Point 13th in his class, and dedicated to cultivating leadership among those around him. The former West Point graduate and Army Ranger joined Procter & Gamble in 1980 and successfully rose into executive positions, including running P&G's multi-billion dollar northeast Asia region.

Last week, McDonald came to the University of Michigan to teach a strategy course on sustainability and to lead a discussion about Values-Based Leadership. In a week that saw a lack of decisiveness on the part of our nation's financial and political leaders, McDonald's visit was a unique opportunity to access a business leader and hear his thoughts on role models. During his time at the Ross School of Business, the COO of Procter and Gamble sat down with the Monroe Street Journal to discuss Values-Based Leadership and his thoughts on leading.Who are your role models?

I've had a lot of role models. My parents have played a very important role in my life. They taught me values and the fact that integrity is important above all else. Now, obviously for someone like me who went to West Point, you get filled with values. At West Point, it's duty, honor, and country. But you also have an honor code that you won't lie, cheat, steal or tolerate those who do. Later, in the military service it's the same thing.

Procter & Gamble also has a very strong code of integrity, so those values have gone through me. A. G. Lafley, our current CEO, has been an important role model and friend for 28 years. He was my sponsor when I joined the company. John Pepper, who was one of our CEOs, was my first General Manager. The day I interviewed - April 4, 1980 - I went through three interviews. I got the offer right there on the spot. I was really surprised by that because no other company I talked with gave me an offer on the spot.

The recruiters were expecting to spend the rest of the day selling me on the Company, so they had to find some way to fill the day. They took me to meet John Pepper, my General Manager. I was supposed to spend just a couple of minutes with him, as he had a lot of responsibilities. However, I couldn't get out of his office. He just wanted to talk about everything. I kept telling him, 'Sir, I have to leave.' There was a line outside his office with people who wanted to meet with him.

I thought, 'How lucky I am to work for a Company that's about improving lives. And here is this man who was willing to spend so much time with a new hire."

That experience taught me so much about how P&G cares for people. It's similar to what I experienced in the military. In the military, when someone's life is in danger, you take care of him or her.

My wife has also been a role model for me. What I've learned from her is very different. In the military, you're often trained not to be emotional. If you're in a dangerous situation, soldiers do not want to follow leaders who are emotional. My wife taught me that it's okay to be emotional. Emotion is an important quality of leadership.

I can train you in all the behaviors of leadership. We have a 5 E model at P&G: envision, engage, energize, enable and execute. I can train you to execute all these behaviors, which will be known as leadership. What I am not as good at is training you to love the people who work for you.

Then how do you train people to love the people who work for them?

It's difficult. What we first have to do is get you in touch with your own socialization. How have you been socialized? How does that socialization lead to unfortunate stereotypes that might get in the way of your relationships with others? We get diverse groups of P&Gers together from all over the world. Then we have them discuss their socialization. We set up situations where their socializations might be hurtful to someone else in the group. We have all had hurtful situations. We teach people that the Golden Rule is no longer good enough in a global company.

In a global company like ours, we use the Platinum Rule. Remember that the Golden Rule is to treat others the way you would want to be treated. That's great when you're working with a homogenous group of people. But when you're working with a diverse group of people, the rule we use is to treat other people the way they would want to be treated. That means I have to know you to know how you would want to be treated. So as an American, I'd have to know how a Thai or Japanese person wants to be treated. I need to understand their culture to do that.

We call this approach "people supporting people." We teach that the best leaders are those who have ambition for the organization, but not for themselves. If an individual's ambition is for himself or herself, chances are people will not want to follow them.

How do you lead so that other people will follow?

The Platinum Rule is important but there's another aspect of leadership that we haven't talked about. To be an effective leader, you have to be an effective follower. A fellow named Larry Donnithorne wrote a book called The West Point Way of Leadership. West Point, if you think about it as a school of leadership, believes that you have to learn how to follow in order to learn how to lead.

Sometimes smart leadership is knowing when to keep your mouth shut and knowing when to follow.

How do you make sure that you are currently given that feedback?

I try to surround myself with people who are different than I am. We have a strategy of diversity at P&G. We want a very diverse organization. We want an organization that looks like the consumers we're trying to serve. Diverse organizations are inherently more innovative - because innovation is all about connecting seemingly disconnected ideas.