AlisonKling

Born the same year as the company, Leonard and reflects on growing up with a company that was and is his family. A family business born in his apartments with facials for friends – “every woman can be beautiful – and in a time when women couldn’t vote, they could build businesses – to a large holding company comprising 25 businesses and products sold across the world. Women were beginning to express themselves in confidence thought makeup.

The book traces not just the arc of Leonard’s life, but the arc and history of the retail business – from small, specialty stores of the 40s and 50s with charge cards and dedicated patrons to the changing tide of retail expansion to the suburbs and the growth of credit cards that are yours rather than stay with the store. Their vision of growth meant figuring out how to go from exclusivity to a shared brand.

Growth of the brand meant growth to the future of shopping, connecting “where people were buying with how they were buying.”

From Belk to Nordstrom to Dillard’s, they took the exclusives away from the small speciality stories to expand into the growing department stores as they begin to reposition their identity.

Leonard’s best lessons and advice:

• packaging required special thought – you can make a thing wonderful by its outward appearance… just about everything has to be sold aggressively
• “Being a perfectionist and providing quality was the only way to do business.” -Estée
• When a person with experience meets a person with money, pretty soon, the person with experience will have the money, and the person with the money will have the experience. (lol)
• On Estée : she was delivering confidence.
• I learned that I didn’t need to prove myself to others…
• Fix it – those two words were key to my ability to be a leader.
• On travel: if you travel alone you learn more and observe more
• Never skimp on quality
• The wrong decision is better than no decision- make the decision now.
• I brought discipline to a loose, learn-as-you-go operation.
• How to walk the tightrope for taking fiscal responsibility and reinvesting money in the company?
• With each success, I became more confident. I was selling the idea of our future greatness every day.
• You have to make a splash.
• We were building faith in our brand.
• The positioning is the product
• Re-nutriv became our hero product: it said, “this is who we are.”
• We made our company a brand. Estée Lauder’s lyrical music inspired people to dream about romance.
• Don’t fall into the trap of “how do we compare to others” as opposed to “this is who we are.”
• Focus on where the business is and will be going.
• Expanding distribution without expanding demand or support for the brand, is fatal. Distribution is forever.
• We think in decades not in the short term.

Leadership lessons he learned in the Navy:

“A ship is like a self contained company, albeit one under military discipline. But even though orders may not be questioned in the navy, how you give the orders and how you manage the people who carry them out is crucial to creating a well run ship or any organization.”

1- decisiveness is the order of the day. when you’re in battle that’s not the time to think things through. The wrong decision is no decision… make the decision, always. If it’s right, bravo, if it’s wrong you’ll find out fast and fix it.

2- give orders in a very clear way, give them to the proper person and don’t be ambiguous.

3- give praise about accomplishments and hard work as often as you can, as long as it is meaningful

4- praise in public and criticize in private.. I’ve had to learn to keep my eyes open but my mouth shut

• You can delegate authority but you can never delegate accountability. You’re all in the same boat but if there is a problem only you are to blame.
• It’s very important for a leader to send the right message through his actions.
• Being small didn’t meant thinking small – it meant nurturing our entrepreneurial spirit.
• Laughter is a great equalizer.

Lessons and Thoughts on Philanthropy:

• Transformative philanthropy – playgrounds!
• Charity events didn’t feel right. “I felt that we should put our money into something that could really make a difference.” His children went to a playground in Central Park.
• “Small but strategic philanthropy can make a difference.” All they needed was one person to do it first.
• His vision for transformative philanthropy is to be an activator for others to give – “begats” his gifts help encourage others to also give. “Everything I’ve done has been with one aim in mind: to make a difference. And I believe I do. It’s the transformations I’ve nurtured among people I’ve worked with and they in me.”

On transforming and working with people:

• Ownership doesn’t come from the shares of stock that you have. It comes from the responsibility you feel for your companies and your colleagues.
• Make tactical mistakes not strategic ones. A tactical mistake is one that if you make it today will only cost you today. A strategic mistake is one that if you make it today it will cost you tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.
• Start with yes – the word no really means how and when. The right timing and reframing can turn a no into a yes.
• “Orderly persuasion “ – look at one element, even only one. Even one, that everyone can agree on. Listening, summarizing and articulating a shared perspective is the first step in making progress.
• It’s easier to get things done if you start with a yes rather than a new. “Let’s review the bidding”
• Start with a YES. (Getting to Yes is a great book he recommends).

All in all I loved the book. Leonard closes out, sharing: “If there’s one enduring lesson I hope this book gives you it’s that we can always learn more.” He was so good as well on vision: “Own your future. I always work backwards to move forward. I start by imagining what I want to happen in 3 to 5 to even 10 years from now. And then I work backwards to articulate the stuff I have to take to get there tomorrow and next year and the year after.”

That is the north star he kept for himself. He built toward vision every day. “I did it when I envisioned transforming a small mom and pop business into the General Motors 9; the cosmetics industry.”

It’s exciting to give yourself permission to open your mind wide and let your imagination soar while keeping your feet firmly planted on the ground.

I love to read about people who built things, who kept on despite setback, who understood that to achieve vision means undaunted, focused effort. Even more than that, that discouragement is part of it but you can’t let that take over. I am thankful for this book, and so glad he wrote it for us before he passed away last year. A gift, and powerful legacy, for us all to learn from. A life well lived.