Hands-On Management Without Micromanagement

"After the initial burst of activity from mid-1980 to early 1981, Atlas barely occupied three or four days a month of Gibbs’ time. Bidwill was the executive director while, even before his formal appointment as chairman, Gibbs’ style was to latch on to the topic periodically, testing and challenging Bidwill’s ideas, then letting him get on with it, while he kept his mind free for other opportunities."

"The nature of Gibbs’ involvement in Forestry Corp was similar to that of his role at Atlas, Freightways and Bendon. His style was markedly different to John Fernyhough’s, for example, who as chairman of Electricorp spent most of his working week in Wellington and operated as an executive chairman. Gibbs gave Kirkland clear direction and then limited his role to challenging, provoking and guiding — and then stepping back to allow the chief executive to do his job. After an initial burst in February and March 1986, he spent no more than two or three days a month on the task. Gibbs says he’s always been ‘very cunning at avoiding the time-consuming business of managing people or of getting sucked into detail’. As a result he was able to cover an extraordinary amount of ground in business and public service, while still retaining enough freedom to travel for as much as three months a year and to think of new schemes. When most of Gibbs’ counterparts could tell him what meeting they’d be attending in a year’s time, Gibbs worked hard to avoid commitments that denied him spontaneity. Wherever he was, in New York or Harare, Gibbs kept on top of his half-dozen work streams with a steady flow of handwritten fax messages, channelled through Jacquie Turner at the West Plaza office."

"Freightways also continued to prosper. The character of Gibbs’ involvement in Freightways remained his ideal for any business enterprise. He’d sit down with Farmer regularly and together they’d work through a list of issues: ‘We’d agree on everything and Trevor would go away and do it,’ Gibbs remembers. He never spent hours studying routes for couriers or worrying about what trucks to buy; nor did he worry about managing the 3200 people working for Freightways’ many businesses. Roger France, who had been their CFO from 1985, watched the Gibbs–Farmer partnership from close quarters."

"Gibbs’ style was an object lesson. ‘Alan would hit on only a couple of things during Freightways board meetings and they would always be of substance,’ he says. ‘While I’d think a little bit about everything, Alan would have thought deeply about a few things, the things that mattered, which on reflection is a better approach.’"