Richard Branson of Virgin is a staunch believer in empowering the right people, listening to them and stepping aside to allow them to succeed. He agrees to the fact that entrepreneurs from all over the world face the issue of not spending quality time with their family. This is something even he faced while branching out to the music and airline industries and expanding on the face of tough competition. He believed in overseeing the tasks of his managers and letting go at the right moment to help them grow. This was done by striking a cord with the friends and family members.
When Virgin Records was being created, Branson chose to shift base to a separate location, viz. a houseboat on the London canal. While this was a pleasant break, it allowed him the time to ponder on the next big projects he had to handle. It also made the managers ‘own’ their decisions without Branson imposing himself as a presence on them. He feels that his business would not have grown, had he not stayed away from exercising a strict rein on his managers and their development tasks.
However, you cannot get away with merely hading over the responsibility. You ought to empower the right people and for this they have the devolved management structure. The Virgin team has the CEOs operating companies as owner-managers. This is why the employees carry a sense of pride with them and managers are able to hire people who suit the requirements well. There are a lot of successful CEOs in Virgin who are interestingly from larger business houses, although they have survived not there, but as a part of the Virgin team.
David Cush of Virgin America is a former executive of American Airlines, Tom Alexander, the Virgin Mobile founder, was a former employee of British Telecom and Neil Berkett of Virgin Media worked for Lloyds Bank. These people have used the principles and cultures of their company to shape Virgin as it is today.
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