The Unpublished David Ogilvy

by David Ogilvy

  I saw my old boss in the kitchens of the Hotel Majestic fire one of his chefs because the poor devil could not get his brioches to rise straight. I was shocked by this ruthlessness, but it made all the other chefs feel that they were working in the best kitchen in the world. Their morale would have done credit to the U.S. Marine Corps.

  I have observed that some men are good at leading the multitude – whether it be the labor force in their company, or the voting population in their country. They are inspiring demagogues, and that can be valuable. But these same men are often miserable leaders of their cabinet or their inside group of executives.

  Good leaders are decisive. They grasp nettles.

  DRINK

  Some of them are very odd characters indeed. Lloyd George was sexually chaotic. General Grant, who won the Civil War, drank like a fish. On November 26, 1863, the New York Herald quoted Lincoln as saying:

  “I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals.”

  Winston Churchill drank as much as Grant. He was capricious and petulant. He was grossly inconsiderate to his staff. He was a colossal egotist. Yet his chief of staff wrote of him:

  “I shall always look back on the years I worked with him as some of the most difficult and trying ones in my life. For all that I thank God that I was given the opportunity of working alongside of such a man, and of having my eyes opened to the fact that occasionally such supermen exist on this earth.”

  I do not believe that fear is a component in a good leadership. It has been my observation that executives do their best work, and certainly their most creative work, in a happy atmosphere. Ferment and innovation thrive in an atmosphere of joie de vivre.

  FUN

  Jerome Bruner, the Harvard psychologist, says that there has never been a great scientific laboratory where the people weren’t having fun. The physicists who split the atom in Niels Bohr’s lab were always playing practical jokes on each other.

  I am indebted to my friend and erstwhile competitor Charlie Brower for his amendment to the first verse in the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul’s first Epistle to the Corinthians, “A man who spendeth his life gathering gold for the United States Treasury and has no fun, is a sounding ass and a tinkling idiot.”

  The great leaders I have known have been curiously complicated men. Howard Johnson, the former President of M.I.T., has described this trait as “a visceral form of spiritual energy which provides the element of mystery in leadership.”

  I have seen this visceral form of spiritual energy, this element of mystery, in Marvin Bower of McKinsey, in Ted Moscoso of Puerto Rico, in the late Henry Alexander of Morgan Guaranty.

  AMERICAN LEADERSHIP NOT EXPORTABLE

  There are three facets of the leadership phenomenon – the leader, the followers and the situation.

  The most effective leader is the one who satisfies the psychological needs of his followers.

  For example, it is one thing to be a good leader of Americans, who are raised in a tradition of democracy and have a high need for independence. But the American brand of democratic leadership doesn’t work so well in Europe. European executives are more dependent than Americans; they have a psychological need for autocratic leadership.

  That is one reason why it is usually wise for American corporations to appoint natives to lead their foreign subsidiaries – natives are more successful in leading other natives.

  In a situation of crisis, it is difficult to lead in a democratic way. When pressures are less urgent, it is easier for the leader to involve his subordinates in the decision-making process.

  It does a company no good when its leader never shares his leadership functions with his lieutenants. The more centers of leadership you find in a company, the stronger it will become.

  BEING A GOOD FOLLOWER

  There is an art in being a good follower. On the night before a major battle, Winston Churchill’s ancestor, the first Duke of Marlborough, was reconnoitering the ground. He and his staff were on horseback. Marlborough dropped his glove. Cadogan, his chief of staff, dismounted, picked up the glove and handed it back to Marlborough. The other officers thought this remarkably civil of Cadogan. Later that evening, Marlborough issued his final order: “Cadogan, put a battery of guns where I dropped my glove.”

  “I have already done so,” replied Cadogan.

  He had read Marlborough’s mind, and anticipated his order. Cadogan was the kind of follower that makes leadership easy. I have known men whom nobody could lead.

  Leadership is out of fashion nowadays. As William Shirer said the other day, “the mass of people are skeptical of a great man, especially one with a great mind. They would rather vote for someone who is mediocre, like themselves.”

  YOU CAN LEARN TO LEAD

  It isn’t always a disaster when a mediocre man is put into a leadership position. The social scientists agree with me that a man can learn the art of leadership – if he thinks it important to try, and if he has sufficiently long tenure at the top. I myself am not a good leader, but I’m a little better than I was when I first reached the top in my company.

  It is horribly difficult to predict whether a man will be a good leader if he is given the chance. The psychologists in OSS came close to making a science of predicting leadership, but very few corporations take enough pains in this area.

  I believe that it is more important for a leader in today’s world to be trained in psychiatry than in cybernetics. The head of a big company recently said to me, “I am no longer a Chairman. I have had to become a psychiatric nurse.” Today’s executive is under pressures which were unknown to the last generation.

  I heard Dr. William Menninger lecture on this subject. He said:

  “The boss is inevitably a father figure. To be a good father requires that he be understanding, that he be considerate, and that he be human enough to be affectionate.

  “One of the most important jobs in life for all of us is to be a good listener. So much of the art of communication is the ability to listen, which has so much to do with motivating people.”

  GHOSTWRITERS

  Most of the great leaders I have known had the ability to inspire people with their speeches. If you cannot write inspiring speeches yourself, use ghostwriters – but use good ones. Roosevelt used Archibald MacLeish, Robert Sherwood and Judge Rosenman. That is why his speeches were more inspiring than those of any of the Presidents we have had since. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

  Very few of the business leaders I know are good on their feet – whoever writes their speeches, and however well they are written, the boss delivers them atrociously. This art can be learned, by anyone who takes the trouble to learn it. In these days of electioneering on television, almost all major politicians have the sense to hire experts to teach them the art of delivery.

  The man who has said the wisest things about leadership is, in my opinion, Field Marshall Montgomery. He has said:

  “The leader must have infectious optimism, and the determination to persevere in the face of difficulties. He must also radiate confidence, even when he himself is not too certain of the outcome.

  “The final test of a leader is the feeling you have when you leave his presence after a conference. Have you a feeling of uplift and confidence?”

  The Duke of Wellington, who won the battle of Waterloo, used to say that Napoleon’s presence on the battlefield was worth 40,000 soldiers.

  Ladies and Gentlemen, I ask you to forgive me for this excursion outside my field of competence. Tomorrow morning, I shall return to my job – which is writing advertisements. That is my trade. That is my profession. But unforeseen circumstances have catapulted me into a position where I also have to function as a leader.

  Like so many businessmen, I have been promoted above the level of my competence.

  In his beloved garden at Touffou.

  David Ogilvy at 75

  An interview
at his home in France

  David Ogilvy at 75

  An interview at his home in France

  David’s 75th birthday was June 23, 1986. Two weeks earlier Joel Raphaelson interviewed him at his home in France, for Viewpoint, the Ogilvy & Mather magazine. Some of the things he said came as a surprise even to long-time associates. Here are excerpts from three and a half hours of tapes.

  You’ve spent about half your life so far in advertising. During the first half of your life did you have any notion what the second half would be like?

  No. During the first half of my life I expected to go into politics, which meant Parliament in England. Pretty vague ambition, but that’s the way I saw my future.

  Whenever I was in London I always went to the House of Commons in the evening, sat in the gallery and listened to debates. One day I was in the gallery in the House of Commons in London, I don’t know how old I was, say 35, and I was listening to them that night and looking at them. And I suddenly said to myself, I don’t want it. I’d lost interest. That’s not for me.

  Then I started an advertising agency.

  Before you started the agency, did you have ambition in the conventional sense of wanting to be rich and famous or powerful in some way or other?

  I had two ambitions. One was to have a Rolls-Royce and the other was to have a knighthood. And I got the Rolls-Royce but never got the knighthood.

  I got over the Rolls-Royce. I’ve got a Volkswagen now. I came pretty close to the knighthood. I got the CBE, Commander of the British Empire. If I’d got the one above that, these things are stratified, it would have been a K, which would have been a knighthood. I didn’t get that.

  You’ve written a lot about various events in your life, but how they came about, that’s a little hazy sometimes. For instance, what got you from Oxford to working in a kitchen in Paris?

  You see the great failure of my life was Oxford. I was supposed to be a star at Oxford. And instead of that, I was thrown out. I couldn’t pass the exams.

  Why? Didn’t you study?

  I don’t know why. I’d like to know. I don’t know to this day. I’ll die not knowing. I think something happened to me. I had a very serious operation, two of them, on my head and maybe that was it. That sounds like an excuse. Anyway, I screwed that up and I got thrown out.

  What happened to your head?

  I had double mastoids. I had my head swathed in bandages for a year. Anyway that was the big failure of my life. It would be awful for any student. But for a star Oxford student, it was really dreadful.

  They thought I was going to be an historian, you know. So I ran away from that sort of cultural background and became a workman, a cook – as far away from that fancy thing as I possibly could.

  Did you go to work as a cook in England or did you go straight to France?

  I went straight to France and managed to get a job in a kitchen in Paris. It was terribly hard work. I worked six days a week. I worked 63 hours a week, standing up, appalling heat, frightful pressure and paid almost nothing.

  One day a man came to Paris who was the sales manager for Aga Cookers, Aga stoves. He was looking for someone to sell Aga stoves to restaurants and hotels in England. He offered me the job.

  Why did he look in Paris for someone to sell stoves in England?

  He wanted someone who could speak French to the French chefs in London. So I went back and started selling Agas in England.

  So you could speak French then?

  Kitchen French. I’d talk to chefs in their own language, which is a very peculiar and rather dirty language.

  Why do you live in France now?

  I was brought up in England. I first started coming to France when I was about 14. I always loved it. I had a wonderful time in France. I thought it was the most interesting country. And then, when I grew up and left the University, I went to live in Paris and became a cook and that was a wonderful experience for me.

  Château de Touffou

  And then for years when I lived in New York, I quite often spent my summer vacation in France and went on bicycle tours. I’ve always loved being in France. I really don’t know why, but I always have.

  I happen to like a lot of French people. I love the landscape. I’m a gardener and it’s a good country for gardening in. I like the small scale of the towns.

  But you know, most of the important decisions you make in life, at least that I make, I haven’t the faintest idea why I make them. I can produce a lot of rationalizations for some emotional thing very deep in my subconscious. So if you ask me why do I live in France, I suppose the honest answer is I haven’t the faintest idea.

  What would you have done differently if you could do it all over?

  The first thing that comes to mind is that I wouldn’t have made so damn many mistakes, and most notably, I would not have sold so many of my Ogilvy & Mather shares.

  There was a time when I owned 30 percent of the company. Well, it was the only thing I had in the world, 30 percent of this advertising agency, which wasn’t very big in those days.

  I was scared. We were being fantastically successful. I kept saying to myself: easy come, easy go. This thing could go up in smoke at any moment. I was frightened and I wanted to get the money out and put it into something safe, like tax exempts.

  So whenever I could sell shares, I did. And it had one good aspect to it. It got some shares into the hands of other people.

  But you know, every time I sold my shares, the price of the shares went up. I kept on selling them. If I had all the shares I’d originally had, I would be worth an enormous fortune today.

  What was your hardest decision?

  Well, I suppose about the hardest decisions have been firing people.

  Other very important decisions, perhaps the most important decisions, might be called merger decisions. We were frequently asked to merge with other agencies. Always much bigger than we were. It’s a polite word, merger. They were really trying to buy us. And I had to decide whether to do it or not.

  The first one was Interpublic. Marion Harper tried to acquire us and offered us half-a-million dollars for our agency and I decided not to do it.

  When was that?

  I think about 1955, somewhere in there. Very early on.

  And then J. Walter Thompson tried twice to buy us, to merge with us, and I decided not to do it.

  BBDO wanted to merge with us when they were about five times as big as we were. Foote, Cone & Belding tried to get us. Leo Burnett tried to merge with us. Leo’s idea was that we would become their New York end.

  I refused all of those. Those weren’t very easy decisions to make. Sometimes. Awfully flattering, you know, those invitations were.

  I guess the real fundamental reason was a rather personal one. I liked Ogilvy & Mather and I didn’t want to muddle it up with anybody else. I thought we were a marvelous outfit. I liked the atmosphere. We were doing well. Relatively successful. We did good advertising campaigns. We were very creative.

  There was, of course, a measure of egotism in this. I didn’t want to have my philosophies diluted by other people’s philosophies. (We called it philosophy. Nowadays it’s called corporate culture.) I thought we’d got the best damn agency and we’d go a long way and do very well and all have happy lives if we just stayed where we were and not get into bed with a bunch of strangers whose corporate culture, in many cases, was so different from ours.

  Leo Burnett – I thought he’d wear me out if we merged. I was always a fairly hard worker, but nothing like Leo. I thought, my God, he’d call me, if we got into bed with him, he’d call me from Chicago at midnight, wake me up, say meet me in Detroit at 8 o’clock tomorrow morning because we’re going to solicit the DeSoto or some automobile account. And I’d have to go there as a good partner. I couldn’t stand that.

  But the fundamental reason was that I liked Ogilvy & Mather. I thought it was in the process of becoming the best damn agency in the history of the world. And I didn’t want to muddl
e it up with any other agency.

  Do you care to comment on the megamergers?

  I’d like to comment, yes.

  I have so often resisted the temptation to megamerge myself. When other people start doing it, I still am glad I resisted it.

  Megamergers are for megalomaniacs. Megalomaniacs make megamergers. The people who make megamergers are the people who want to be the head of the biggest goddamn advertising agency. That’s their ambition. That’s what they want.

  These big mergers do nothing for the people in the agency. It’s quite the opposite. They do nothing for their clients. And it remains to be seen whether they do anything for stockholders. What they do good for is the megalomaniacs who engineer them. So I’m against that.

  How would you describe your role in the company today?

  It’s kind of hard to define. I am a director of the company. My advice is asked. And when it’s asked, I give it. I sometimes give advice when it’s not asked, which causes a certain amount of irritation to the people I give it to.

  I don’t like my present role as much as I liked my active role. It used to be that when I went to see clients I’d got something in my hand to show them – an ad or a layout or a storyboard or research report or something. I was doing business with them and I was earning my living.

  It isn’t like that any longer. Now I’m so often taken to see clients like a sort of exhibit at the zoo.

  But I’m in this particular position today. There have been some major figures in the history of advertising. Particularly American advertising. People like Albert Lasker and Stanley Resor of Thompson and in a sense Ray Rubicam. I belong to that group and I’m the last of them. It’s an endangered species. Resor is gone. Retired and then died. Bernbach is dead. Rubicam is dead. Ben Duffy of BBDO is dead.