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.””