DEAN SENSUI / DSENSUI@STARBULLETIN.COM Former Times Mirror and General Mills executive Mark Willes told Chamber of Commerce members yesterday the four key principles for leaders are: lead, set high standards, empower others and kindle passion. Willes spoke at the chamber's annual convention at the Hale Koa Hotel.

Tough lessons
from the top

Former Times Mirror Co.
CEO Mark Willes provides
his advice from experience

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By Dave Segal
dsegal@starbulletin.com

Mark Willes can attest that it's not always easy being on the hot seat.

But the former high-ranking executive for General Mills and Times Mirror told a Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii gathering yesterday that pressures from the present economic climate and the change in the governor's administration offer state business leaders a unique opportunity to rethink what their businesses are all about and how they operate them.

Willes, the keynote speaker at the chamber's annual convention, told a gathering of more than 230 at the Hale Koa Hotel's DeRussy Hall that successful leaders need to follow four principles: lead, set high standards, empower others and kindle passion.

"It's so easy to say and so hard to do," Willes said. "Yet, it is the responsibility of each of us and all of us."

Willes related a story about leadership culled from a 15-year career at General Mills where he was executive vice president, chief financial officer, president and chief operating officer.

One day he and the head of General Mills' restaurant group walked into the Olive Garden, an Italian-themed restaurant, during a tour of the company's Southern California dining establishments.

"The idea when you walk into an Olive Garden is the hot food is hot, the cold food is cold, the service is great and you only pay about $10," Willes said. "You have this wonderful experience and you think you've died and gone to heaven."

Instead, they walked into an empty restaurant at 5 o'clock on a Friday afternoon, received no initial welcome and ultimately were seated at a window with a setting sun streaming into their eyes. Their request to have the shade lowered took 20 minutes. To make matters worse, "the hot food was not hot, the cold food was not cold and the service was absolutely awful. It was not only the worst experience I've had in one of our restaurants, but the worst experience I've had in anybody's restaurant."

Willes' dining partner, the head of the restaurant group, called for the manager but was told he wasn't on duty on what should have been a busy night. Furthermore, the assistant manager who responded didn't seem totally coherent. Willes and his companion decided a management change was in order and vowed to return in about a month to see how it could affect the operation.

"When I came back in 28 days, the restaurant was full, the hot food was hot, the cold food was cold and it was a wonderful experience," Willes said. "So I called the 'new' general manager over and asked, 'How many of the 115 employees did you have to fire to get this dramatic change.' He said, 'One.' "

The rest of the restaurant's transformation, Willes said, was because of leadership. He said the new general manager set the standards, trained the employees, held them accountable for the standards and let them go to work.

Among the other principles, Willes said leaders must empower others because "nobody is smart enough to do it all." The fourth principle about kindling passion involves getting people to believe in the cause. "People will work for a living but they'll die for a cause. What is it in your organization that is so meaningful that they will give everything they have to do it?"

Willes, currently the president of the Hawaii Honolulu Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, came to Hawaii shortly after retiring as chairman, president and chief executive officer of Times Mirror in April 2000. During his five-year reign, where he also served part of the time as publisher of the Los Angeles Times, he boosted profitability and circulation while cutting unsuccessful units and revamping marketing strategy.

However, he also came under intense fire during that time for a revenue-sharing agreement with Los Angeles' Staples Center athletic arena that newsroom employees felt crossed the line between editorial and advertising relationships. Tribune Co., publisher of the Chicago Tribune, also went behind Willes' back to buy Times Mirror by negotiating with the Chandler family, which owned a majority of the voting shares.

After yesterday's speech, Willes, who declined to talk about the Staples Center or Tribune issues, talked about other topics, such as his experience taking over the Los Angeles Times with no newspaper background and the newspaper war between the Star-Bulletin and the Honolulu Advertiser.

>> Los Angeles Times. "I found it challenging because the newspaper business is a very special business and a lot of the business aspects of it are the same. But if I had it to do over again, I would have interacted with the journalists in a little different way ... because something that meant one thing to me meant something quite different to them. I should have been more sensitive and figured it out before I did that."

>> Honolulu newspaper war. "I think newspaper competition like that is wonderful because it makes both organizations sharper and it provides a wonderful diversity for readers ... My sense is that readership at both papers has gone up ... I think you've got to have an educated, literate society if you're going to have the kind of government you want, if you're going to have the kind of institutions you want."

Earlier in the day, chamber business leaders discussed legislative issues that came from feedback from the chamber's 1,100 members. Those issues were reduction of taxes and/or tax incentives coupled with reduction in the cost of government, and the reduction of health care costs and workers' compensation costs.

"We're getting their feedback and putting more meat on the subject," said Jim Tollefson, the chamber's president and CEO. "We will have our initiatives in place between now and the start of the Legislature. It's very important for us, since we're a member-driven organization, to have that feedback from our members."