Management Autonomy, Command When Needed

"In fact, Tisch was running a network, but he was doing it by find- ing the right people and letting them do their jobs without second- guessing. That he was able to do so should come as no surprise. Throughout their careers, the Tisches let capable managers manage without hovering over them. They hovered only when things ap- peared to be going wrong, and they richly rewarded successful man- agers—not themselves. Sagansky, for example, was paid a total of $6.1 million in 1992, nearly four times Tisch’s compensation from CBS."

"As Tisch explained it, “We let people have authority, otherwise they lose their effectiveness.” But the Tisches weren’t known for pa- tience. They did not wait for problems to solve themselves. “A decline of any kind concerns us,” Bob said. “We go in immediately to see how we can do better.”"

"Even before the World’s Fair opened, the Tisches enjoyed a 15 pen cent higher occupancy rate than their rivals in the city’s hotel bush ness. Why? Bob Tisch attributed it to having newer properties and bigger rooms. Also, unlike their competitors, the Tisches were pro- moting their hotels at their 74 movie theaters and were even taking hotel reservations at the theaters. One former executive pegged their success in large part to having assembled the finest hotel sales force in the world. More important, Bob suggested, was having management housed just a few blocks away. “We are sitting on top of our operations and are not absentee owners,” he said."