A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

90 ■ A CLASS WITH DRUCKER
Roberts became CEO of Arby’s at a time when the business was doing very
poorly, <strong>with</strong> sales falling 10 percent to 15 percent a year.
Roberts turned the corporation around by promising service and support
to Arby’s franchisees <strong>with</strong> help and money. He delivered, and the franchisees
supported him in turn. Sales soared. Eager for even more profits,
Arby’s then-owner threatened to <strong>with</strong>draw the support that Roberts had
initiated and he refused to pay bonuses Roberts had promised to his subordinates.
Meanwhile, Roberts had been appointed to the board of directors.
The first meeting he attended lasted fifteen minutes. He saw that the
board was simply a rubber stamp for the owner.
Said Roberts: “I knew what I had to do. I had to take a stand, so I
resigned from the board.” Roberts also took steps to rectify the situation
<strong>with</strong> his staff bonuses and the franchisees. Roberts had made promises
<strong>with</strong> the full authority of his boss. His boss considered this insubordination.
He fired Roberts for supporting the franchisees. 2
What happened to Leonard Roberts afterwards? Did this finish his
career as a CEO? Not quite. In fact, he stumbled right into another situation
which eventually led to another unplanned departure. Through a
headhunter, he was offered the position of chairman and CEO of a chain
of 2,000 restaurants headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee called Shoney’s.
The situation looked right, so Len Roberts accepted the offer. Only afterwards
did he learn that Shoney’s was the subject of the largest racial discrimination
law suit in history. Questioned by The Wall Street Journal,
Roberts promised that the suit would be settled <strong>with</strong>out long-term impact
on the company.
Unfortunately, this was more easily said than done. This was not
some issue of a misunderstanding. The policy of the former chairman
was not to hire African-Americans. Moreover, his official policy was to
fire any restaurant manager who did! When I spoke <strong>with</strong> Roberts some
years ago he said, “The settlement of that suit was the thing I am most
proud of in my life. The former chairman agreed to pay up and settle.
This saved the company. But I had to agree to resign after he did so. This
was my second time out of work in almost as many years. There was
no other way.” 3
So here was a man who achieved high performance while basically
ignoring any fear that he would lose his job. And he did the same thing
again, even in the wake of losing his job the first time around. Fortunately,
Leonard Roberts became the CEO of RadioShack after leaving Shoney’s.