Chapter 1: How to adopt the Maersk Mindset?

Nicolas Easton
Sep 8, 2018 · 34 min read

Maersk Group, world’s largest ocean transport & logistics company, is a conglomeration of brands like Maersk Line, APM Terminals, DAMCO, Maersk Container Industry, and Svitzer. (Think European Union is a congregation of countries like France, Germany, Denmark, and others) Most noticeably, Maersk Line is the largest shipping line in the world, responsible for 18% of total trade in the world — the chances are that the shoes on your feet, the fashion piece on your body, the car you drive, the phone you use, or the laptop you are suing are carried by one of Maersk’s vessels.

Maersk is not a consumer-facing company (not just yet). Therefore, if you haven’t gone deep into the business world, you probably have never heard about it. If you compare each of Maersk’s business unit to known companies by revenue, you can see Maersk Line itself is comparable to McDonalds or Starbucks.

Source: Maersk

Though the high flying revenue, Maersk Line’s business model is deceptively easy to describe: loading customers’ cargos onto one of its gigantic vessels and moving from one port/terminal to another via water. Applying the aforementioned model in scale is where the difficulty really kicks in. Imagine you have to manage 800 vessels across five oceans, moving 1 million containers per month supported by 37 thousand Maersk staff located in nearly every country in the world. It is not an easy feast. ( Merely the thought of working across multiple time zones to roll out any organizational changes is already giving me a headache)

How Maersk achieved such scale while continuously and consistently improving its operational efficiency to stay competitive is what amazed me, a grunt from a startup environment where 30 people can be referred to as a “huge team.”

This is the question I asked myself when I joined Maersk’s think tank, Maersk Management Consulting, as an internal consultant to contribute to its global transformation ambition as soon as I wrapped up my studies at Oxford. From working closely with various verticals and across functions, I concluded the following 13 reasons that contributed to Maersk’s success.

Supporting ideas 1: To have the courage to fail, but you have to learn from your mistakes THOROUGHLY.

Maersk became what it is today is, in my opinion, due to neither its first mover advantage nor luck. On the contrary, though ventured into the ocean transport business in 1904, Maersk was a latecomer to the party compared to many other ocean harbingers. In addition, luck-wise after the second world war, Mr. Maersk lost effectively every profitable vessel he owned. So what exactly contributed to Maersk’s success? I think its entrepreneurial spirit has something to do with it. If you mapped out the new ventures Maersk has entered and exited, you’d realize that Maersk has been an impressive entrepreneurial growth story in the past 114 years history.

Source: Maersk Management Consulting

From ocean-related businesses like fishing, whaling, and ferry; to logistic related businesses like bulk shipping, passenger airlines, forwarding; and to seemly unrelated industries like sugar plantation, data, and retail, Maersk has tried and failed at many different things before becoming the industry leader at ocean transport — Maersk is built on past mistakes.

Although it is a cliche to simply put that success is built on past failures, we all, particularly the leaders, like to leave the learning opportunities to others and to maintain our reputation by being correct. Being correct all the time most often box us in our own comfort zone and prevent us from taking calculated risks — this can be dangerous if we are in a market with many disruptors. (Think Nokia)

Maersk not only fostered a culture and hosted an impressive history of taking risks and trying new things, but also scrutinized failed projects in detail.

In 2016, Maersk financed a digital venture called Fromtu to act as an online B2B marketplace and trading platform, aiming to increase African trade by facilitating African exports, African imports and generate intra-Africa trade. Unfortunately, Fromtu’s high ideals met with harsh reality in Africa and decided to stop the loss in 2018.

The key leadership decided not to assign blame but to scrutinize every piece of information on what went wrong and why. This is the best testimonies of accepting mistakes as a part of the process of trying something new and the best encouragement to employees to propose new ideas in the future even if they sometimes do not pan out.

Supporting ideas 2: Place employees alongside customers and business partners at every possible opportunity.

“What do women want deserves a lot more credit than its chick flick status. It is really a genius film about how to succeed in business “, my project leader, Jason, proclaimed it with some drunken glow surfacing around his cheeks in a bar near a remote town in Poland. This is the sort of conversation we often run into when we have been on the roads for too long — how can I complain? For Maersk being a truly global company, we all knew for what we signed up. “You need to understand that everything in movies are metaphors. Women are the center focus of Nick Marshall (portrayed by Mel Gibson)”, Jason continued with a long pause. “Women are not only the target audience of Nick Marshall’s professional life but also the sole focus of his private life. Understanding what they like, how they think, and act on their preference are the key reasons Nick became so lucky with women. Nay, let’s be real. Nick became such a master, he learned to predict what women like even before they knew it”,  Jason said it with such passion in his voice as if he was shouting out words. “What Maersk needs is this laser focus to know exactly what our customers wants, how they want it, and when they want it; and to act on this privilege knowledge. One day, when we will be able to predict what our customers want before they even know it, we’d finally become the master.” With the voice of Yoda, Jason nodded to his statement as if he was persuaded by his own argument.

Though it is formatted in a different language, his sentiment is shared across the Maersk organization. When Maersk wants to release a new idea, a new service, or a new product, the first thing that the senior leadership team would ask is that “is this something our key accounts want?” In my project based tenure at Maersk, I spent a significant amount of time reviewing the feasibility and execution of new business units like trade finance as well pushed for new services like the product-ize detention and demurrage offerings. I learned that the earlier I can get detailed customer inputs the better. Giving real customer inputs early on in the product design process ensure I can have enough space and time to tailor or even pivot my offerings — it will allow you to rework my assumptions and offerings that make little sense to the customer. You’d be surprise how much of your assumptions of customers do not hold true. (It’d be a real bummer if you show up to your dates with a bouquet of nice and expansive roses and then realize your date is seriously allergic to it)

In addition, include business partners in your self-made list of advisors. They most often will be able to provide the real-world perspective on an array of issues directly applicable to the product or service you are operating.

Supporting ideas 3: Dig inside your company for creative ideas first.

I started out my career in a role similar to that of an external consultant. Most often, I was brought in to provide innovative ideas or to review an undergoing projects/programs/products/services/institutions. My team and I have always tried our best to deliver some outstanding insights that were appreciated by our clients. In the beginning, I often leverage my network to aggregate opinions to external expertise with a grain of salts, and then filter & tailor their ideas as a baseline to serve my engagement. One time, we were on a project to investigate the feasibility of deploying a standalone mobile loyalty app to drive the millennial engagement rate, retention rate, and brand recognition for a regional airline. Per usual, as soon as I learned the scope of the project, I would go into an auto-piloting mode — started gathering external resources through connections my personal assistant has listed out. Over a call, there was this expert who absolutely nailed the problems my client was facing, giving insights on past key failures, and providing the crucial rough roadmap for my client’s future development. In our hour conversation, he hit the bullseye with each point I raised, and I was just busy jotting down notes. When I went home later that evening, his echoes were still in my mind, so I googled him even further and realized he actually was a mid-senior level manager at my client’s firm. My client could very well have given him a call to get the answer he needed instead of spending money on my team.

The moral of the story is that companies often go to outside experts, consultants, and advisors for creative ideas, best practices, and inspirations. They often ignore their own development team and other internal company resources available. More so than not, those who have been intimately involved with developing a product or have years of hands-on experience will have great ideas on what is working, what is not working, and how to improve further.

Maersk Group’s internal consultancy, Maersk Management Consulting, is a glaring example of mobilizing internal resources and knowledge reserve while bringing in outside-in perspective.

Maersk Management Consulting(MMC) is an autonomous department sitting in the Maersk Group’s strategy department, independent from the influences of Maersk’s many business clouds, most notably Maersk Line, APM Terminals, and Svitzer. Therefore, MMC could maximize its neutrality and objectivity. In addition, MMCers are a group of ambitious and driven individuals of whom, 30% came from established external consultancies, 30% came from Maersk’s business units, 20% freshly minted from universities, and the rest 20% came from different backgrounds (e.g. I came from digital startup and venture capital)

(Graph needed) on the slipt

Starting in 2014 (? need to verify), MMC started out as an experiment at best — lack of executive support, inter-company exposure, and funding. Starting from non-business driver related projects, MMCers have proven its efficacy, its ability to connect the link between the leadership and the front line team, its area expertise, and its outside in objectivity one step at a time. Now, MMC won over the spotlight of Maersk’s largest transformation effort of the century and became somewhat of a special force who will be parachuted in to preempt or solve business problems.

Whether you are a senior manager or someone who has only recently started his or her career, you should, as a rule of thumb, go seek answers internally first before pouring time, money, and other resources to external channels.

Supporting ideas 4: Look for innovative and systematic ways to STREAMLINE routine tasks, especially those that are done on a daily basis.

At first, I was not very impressed with my Green Belt in Lean Six Sigma (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_Six_Sigma)during my MBA. I thought the certification deviated from the original intent, was ostracized by the utilitarian goal, and became purely an academic excercise.

I have to admit, coming from a startup, I had very little empathy towards fixing operational issues — We simply had much bigger fish to fry — how to bring in revenue so that my employees will have a salary to receive at the end of the month. Streamling routine task, making operational improvement, and keeping the process lean were simply out of my scope. It made sense at the time — my team was only 27 people. However, after participating in Maersk’s transformation projects, running through the numbers, I started to fathom what continuous improvement really means to a 22.8 billions p.a. cost company like Maersk.

Without going too much in the weeds of Lean Six Sigma, I want to give you a quick startup guide of how to systematically streamline routine tasks by using the famous Toyota Production System(TPS). To do that, I will need to tell you the story of Toyota and teach you some Japanese words and concepts.

Toyota has long been the auto industry’s most profitable and innovative firm. Innovative? You might raise your eyebrow and draft in your thoughts of getting that brand new Tesla. Toyota’s innovation is not the flashy kind that has been coined by Steve Jobs and his show stage, but rather on process and its factory floor. Although Toyota’s innovation is hard to see, it is nevertheless powerful.

At the core of Toyota’s innovation and its success lie the Toyota Production System. A engineer named Taiichi Ohno turned necessity into virtue, designed a system to get as efficient as possible in every part, every machine, and every worker. The principles were surprisingly simple, even obvious — reduce waste, have materials arrive precisely when workers need them, and fix problems as soon as they arise. Mr. Onho used Henry Ford’s streamline production as aspiration and supermarket’s stuffing as blueprint, and he took Toyota to another level — better than any manufacturing company at the time. It has done so by reorganizing workspaces, striving for incremental yet continuous improvement in order to allow for a freer and easier flow of materials and information. Onho coined the terms Kaizen, Muda, Muri, Mura to illustrate what it means to be continuously improving.

1) KAIZAN 改善

Kaizan means continuous improvement in Japanese. It is part action plan and part philosophy where employees at all levels of an organization can work together proactively to achieve regular, incremental improvements to the daily process, whether it is manufacturing, communication, or pushing papers.

  • As an action plan, Kaizen is about organizing events and setting up roles focused on improving specific areas within the operations
  • As a philosophy, Kaizen is about building a meticulous and self enforcing culture where all employees are actively engaged in suggesting and implementing improvements to the company and be rewarded. In truly lean companies, Kaizen becomes a natural way of thinking for both leaders and implementers

Kaizen in action sometimes is synonymous with standardization of process which means to capture a particular micro segment of a CURRENT process, to analyze it, to derive best practices, to standardize it, and to push it out to magnify its effect across. Image you are a hot-shot detective who maps out the critical events in a linear timeline leading to a crime occurrence and studies every details of each critical path using a magnifying glass.

A key to standardized work is having living a best-practices document that can continually evolves through Kaizen. And a typical Kaizen engagement cycle goes something like this:

1) Set goals and provide necessary background, context, motivation, end results.

2) Review the current as-is state and develop a plan for future improvements

3) Implement improvements and collect implementation issues

4) Review and fix what does not work

5) Report results and determine any follow-up items

2) The Toyota 3M model:

One of the most important goals of lean process is to eliminate waste. Mr. Taiichi Ohno, father of the Toyota Production System (TPS) defined three categories of waste: Muda, Muri, and Muda; and the goal is to eliminate unnecessary steps (muda), to eliminate bottlenecks/unevenness(mura), and to to eliminate the possibility of burning out employees with unreasonable burden (muri)

2.1) MUDA 無駄

Muda refers to processes or activities that don’t add value. These types of waste do not help your business or workers in any way. They increase costs and make tasks take much longer than they should.

Unless Maersk’s Triple E super Panama class vessels can march directly into customer’s warehouse and be filled up, there will always be some sort of waste that gets in the way of 100% “revenue generation”. (Revenue generation starts with the vessel left the port in sailing mode) Naturally, in the past 40 years, Maersk has put much of the focus to reduce the time and cost as much as it can. However, we still have a long way to go. (We have to know that 100% reduction of waste is never possible)

Muda is defined by eight archetypes. To make it easy to remember, let’s call it the DOWNTIME dimensions:

1) Defects

2) Overproduction

3) Waiting

4) Non-used, Idle resources

5) Transport

6) Inventories

7) Motion

8) Excess processing

You can benchmark your process to these 8 dimensions to see if there is anything can be done. 99% of the time, the answer is yes. Finding and eliminating Muda is essential if you want to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and increase profits. However, if you don’t also address mura and muri, these benefits will be inconsistent or may even fade away quickly.

2.2) MURA 無斑

Mura is a type of waste caused by unevenness in the process. It is also caused when standards are nonexistent or are not followed. When you map out the whole business process of Maersk operation, you’d find many nodes in between handling. These nodes at a higher conceptual level include, for example: from trucks picking up empty containers in the depot, from trucks going into customer’s warehouse to be loaded, from trucking going from customer warehouse to the Marinetime terminal, from trucks waiting in line to get documents checked, from containers to be released from trucks and decked onto a container yard, from containers going from a contain yard to an actual vessel. The above examples are the tip of an iceberg for we can further break these nodes down in more a granular level.

In a perfect scenario, when the trucks arrive in the empty container yard, there is one readily available empty container ready to be picked up; when trucks go into customer’s warehouse, the merchandise have already been sorted and workers are ready to load them into the container; when trucks are driving from the warehouse to the maritime terminal, there are not too many trucks congested the roads to the terminal, etc. You get the idea. In reality, what I described rarely happens. There is unevenness at each nodes.

In an office environment, for instance, you need to prepare 10 slides presentation for a recurring meeting once every 5 weeks. You have a sequential process with different employees at each nodes: Jason to get the data, Ben to analyze the data, Jen to align the findings, and Marry to output the findings. If Jen’s process takes significantly more time than Jason’s and Marry’s, no matter how efficient Jason can be, the process speed will be frozen at Jen’s level. Jen’s node becomes the bottleneck of the operation Then we have to investigate if it is Jen who is slow or if the process assignment is rational and efficient.

What’s the result of unevenness in the process? Customers receive inconsistent products or services. The some production floors struggle to complete large orders, and some production floors become idle. Even more concerning is that mura creates muri (overburden), which in turn undermines efforts to eliminate the seven wastes of muda.

2.3) MURI 無理

There always can be a time where your associates have to run that extra mile and give that extra effort to make sure the customer demand is fulfilled. There is nothing wrong with it if it happens once in a while like when you try to win over a project. However, it becomes a problem if you want to normalize it. It is simply not sustainable. Do you remember those 72-hour-before-the-exam cramming sessions you often pulled in university becomes your daily study routine. It is just a matter of time you’d be burned out — even if you overwork your machines, they break down easily.

When operators or machines are utilized closed to 100% of their capability on a regular basis, it is just a matter of time when they are overburdened. To prevent overworked employees, the company should focus on all process designs and all standard work initiatives. To optimize the use of machines and vessels and make sure they function properly and safely, preventative and autonomous maintenance should be considered implemented.

When the employees are overworked on a daily basis, you can find, for the most part, that this is because the employees:

  • Lack of proper training
  • Have no standards to follow
  • Are given the wrong tools for the job

When workers lack the standards to follow, for example, tasks become much more difficult, take more time to complete with no quality assurance. For instance, one time I asked my six stakeholders to fill in a status report card without a standard template. It doubled the time for my stakeholders to figure out what to write; it tripled the time for me to consolidate the notes; it quadruple the alignment time for us because we have to rework a big portion of the material.

Eliminating Muda, mura, and muri

The purpose of continuous improvement (Kaizen) is to find and eliminate Muda, mura, and muri, in order to improve quality, safety, and efficiency. Here is a simple to use 4-component framework: PDCA( Plan, Do, Check, and Act). The nice thing about PDCA is that it brings a disciplined, and nearly scientific, approach to making improvements (who does not like Science):

  • PLAN: Understand the underlying problems, motivation and objectives
  • DO: Conduct analysis and carry out small-scale experiements
  • CHECK: Review the analysis, check sense check the results, and refine the approach
  • ACT: Take actions from the learnings and apply it at scale

In conclusion, an operation-heavy company like Maersk should embrace continuous improvement as a long term strategy with action points and one of the philosophical bedrocks in its culture. Every employees within the company should understand the concept of Kaizen with the PDCA framework as a guideline to solve Muda, Muri, Mura in daily operations.

To be continued…

Supporting ideas 5: Act like a market leader — humbleness.

One of Maersk’s core values is humbleness. I remembered during my very first day at Maersk, I went through the orientation like any other wide-eyed newbies and listened to the narrator proudly announce the meaning behind Humbleness “ Showing trust and giving empowerment to those among you. Continually improving your craft and never underestimating our competitors or stakeholders.”

To me, it really means to listen, learn, share, and give space to others — internally or externally. Maersk is an indisputable industry leader in its scale and effectiveness, and it acts like a leader — — something that many companies simply fail to do. “We are the leader in this space — act like it. Do not be ashamed, bashful or defensive about it. ” The old man, McKinney Møller, once said in a town hall meeting to his employees. His speech was remarkable in a Danish culture context, where people were raised to believe that they are no better than others and, from my perspective, often time feel awkward about being no.1 in anything.

What the old man’s speech was not about beating the “we are the biggest dog in the house” drumbeat all the time. It means to act “big” and own “big” by acting humble, avoiding cockiness, and never belittling competitors.

Market leaders are humble, avoid cockiness and never belittle their competitors. They also put a human face on the company’s service and products and know their competitor personally. A market leader believes healthy competition is good, and looks for opportunity to expand the overall market size for everyone

  1. Maersk is proactively seeking to grow and always strive to grow the pie

If you can’t win, find ways to change the rules.

  1. When trying to break into an existing market with a new product, dont just try and offer the same as everyone else. That’s a hard sell. A far better strategy is to try and change the competitive playing field by introducing a new product or service that is markedly different from everyone else’s, and with more added value features
  2. VAS Team on creating valued added service cross different brands, growth team looking for innovative way to support small startups, digital team create new digital products

Always think three moves ahead — Constant Care

  1. As well as planning a price cut, you should also be thinking about what you will do if your competitor responds by matching your price cut. Or how offset a competitor’s product release with a news release of your own. Business planning should always take into account the realities of the marketplace, and allow for competitive responses.
  2. Maersk likes to not only pressure test its future strategy, but also … need input

Hit’em where they ain’t

  1. When going head to head with a well-established competitor, look for niche markets they don’t already own as a viable entry point. Do not take them on where they’re strongest

Win-win deals are possible to structure if both parties focus on what they care about and what their partners care about

  1. Most often, parties to a negotiation have different objectives they want to achieve. The best business transactions are always structured so each party achieved what it wants.

Try it out in the real world

  1. When develop a new product or service, get it in front of its target audience as soon as possible to test your hypothesis. This will provide worthwhile feedback on how to develop it further. Incrementally attaching a large problem is usually most effective.
  2. Pilotting on new concepts

Make big bets — our name

  1. Maersk bet millions of dollars and the time of its best talents on transforming itself.
  2. Buying Hamburg sud, selling maersk energy

Set up a public presentation or launch date

  1. To avoid getting bogged down on a project, scheduled a public presentation or launch date
  2. Need example outside of MMC

Chapter 2 How to do your job well

Main idea:

In the good old days of business, doing your job well simply meant completing assignments on time and within budget. Today, however, standing out at work requires you to go beyond your direct responsibilities and think about the impact of your work on the department and company as a whole, and to figure out creative ways to get things under control. If you can think on behalf of the stake owner, your service could be much more demanding.

Chapter 2 Support idea:

The elevator test: Present your work in 30-seconds with the most compelling reasons for people to buy in?

  1. At Maersk, most people who are not sales are able to present a convincing explanation of their work and key benefits in 30 seconds. They’re prepared to professionally discuss their products at the literal drop of a hat, whenever any opportunity arises.
  2. In our BDV project, we all need to concisely pinned point exactly what the strategic rationale is to set up a new operation or acquire an existing player

Understand your clients and your customers so thoroughly that you understand their motivations and requirements

  1. Maersk’s new service plans always detail prospective customers in great detail and on the foundation of numerous potential user surveys. Similarly, to push for any internal alignment, consultants should know the key stakeholders well before making suggestions.
  2. In the governance design of Maersk IT, Benjamin taught me to understand what drives the stakeholder to do what they do. To look a level deeper into what their actions signaled, and pre empt any obstacles (change managment)

Set up internal SWOT analysis to review your own company and department from your competition’s perspective. How can you grow and how you can be compromised?

  1. Pretend you were your own department/company’s greatest nemesis. If you want to win, what would you do? Put together a dummy business strategy and market plan for yourself. Think like the competitor first, and then turn around and develop strategies for how to respond if, in fact, your competitors move in that direction
  2. If you were the enemy, how would you usurp the throne? Need examples and inputs

Know your industry business inside and out (how the company makes money)

  1. That way you can spot trends, and make better decisions at the last minute, and defend your ideas to your co-workers and managers.
  2. Wishes this can be better. Internal knowledge sharing sessions
  3. Porter’s 5 forces

Know the questions your boss might ask during your presentation, and be prepared to answer them concisely.

  1. It is always going to be easier to develop strong, persuasive answer alone in a quiet room, than it will be in room with everyone who is senior than you staring at your and waiting for your answer. Anticipate what might come up and prepare accordingly.
  2. Story: what i did in my first presentation at the IT strategy. Then at the APMT workshop. I learned all the numbers inside and out. And when they asked me stuff. I knew not only the answer, but also how the answer derived

Always make decisions based on your answer to the question: “ If I owned the company, what would I do, or want my employees to do in this situation?”

  1. Developing an ability to think of things from the broader company perspective is very worthwhile. Never get into a situation where you’re at cross purposes with other divisions of the company. Look for ways to work together. That’s the true owner’s perspective.
  2. Need examples

If you have a choice, work smarter instead of longer

  1. The ability to cut through the minor issues to get to the one or two items that create added value for the business is important. Save your best efforts for those issues that will impact the company significantly, and try to eliminate everything else
  2. Think about ways to speed up the work.

“Work smarter, but not longer/harder” is false premise — you can always work longer

  1. You can work harder and smarter at the same time. Objectively, it is easier to increase the time you spend on a project than increase the working effectiveness if you are already reasonably efficient
  2. Objectively, you can. There are two key drivers to productivity. The amount of time you are put in, and the rate it is producing.

Never bluff if you have no clue. Saying, “I do not know, but I will find out for you” is better than trying to misrepresent a guess as a fact

  1. Try and prepare beforehand as thoroughly as possible, but if someone throws an obscure question, do not be afraid of admit you need to go find the answer for them. When you follow through with them, they will be impressed with your thoroughness and professionalism
  2. Bullshit is easy to spot. Taught by xxx

In a sticky situation, a little self-deprecating humor can go a long way to getting you back on track

  1. Never underestimate the soothing power of a few humorous comments when you’ve embarrassed yourself, or when things haven’t gone according to plan. You will find most people have been in similar situations themselves, and will be more than willing to chuckle along so long as you are prepared to laugh at yourself a little
  2. Share a thing i have shared from one of the VPs

But do not overkill the self-deprecating part

  1. A little self-deprecating humor works from time to time. Do not overuse it. You do not want to be thought of as lack of confidence and insecured

Real employees eat lunch

  1. Go and eat lunch with your colleagues. In fact, it is a great chance to gather information and become aware of new opportunities around the company if you regularly hang out with your coworkers. And it gives you the chance to come back at your work with renewed vigor and freshness after a complete change of pace

Creativity at its best is not an one-man effort. Get your colleagues in on the action. A much better idea will emerge

  1. Actually, most of your coworkers will be flattered by the chance to brainstorm a little on something new rather than bothered. And getting others perspective — from throughout the company — will result in a better, bulletproof idea emerging. Be inspired by other people’s efforts on your projects.
  2. Brainstorming session is an art. Talk about what a nicely went brainstorming looks like

Take on assignments you can actually do, and if for some reason circumstances change, find someone who can finish your assignment for you

  1. People will remember what you have done well. But people will remember what you have failed even more. If you do not deliver on whatever you’ve promised, nobody will ever give you important things to do. They won’t trust you
  2. MMC team: never let anyone fallen behind.

Whenever it comes down to other people’s experience versus your instincts, go with your instincts.

  1. Fight hard for whatever your instincts tell you is the right thing to do in any specific situation, even if that puts you at odds with other people who have more experience than you. Everyone else will respect where you’re coming from

Always make your boss look good

  1. The ideal work relationship is to work for someone that you are trying to make a star performer, and who is trying to do the same for you. Whenever your boss succeeds, some of that glow will rub off on the members of his team. That’s a smart and effective way to move ahead in the company.

Be aware of and never waste your manager’s time

  1. If you need input, cut straight to the chase. Include them in meetings, emails, and memos only if that is their preferred way of keeping in touch. Otherwise, don’t.

Take potential solutions to your manager, not problems.

  1. Whenever there is a problem, first develop a few potential solutions and think through the advantages and disadvantages of each. Then use your manager to advise you on whether you’ve thought through everything correctly. It is much more efficient

Send out early warning signals to impending problems so no surprises

  1. A funny story, of when I wanted to surprise my gf, but it missed the mark. Do not surprise your boss with a missed deadline or other glitch. As soon as you become aware of emerging problems, let your boss know. That way, you can work together to minimize the impact of the problem, or avoid waste in related activities

Learn your boss’s strengths and develop ways to offset any areas that are weaker

  1. Like you, your manager will be strong in some areas and weak in others. If you can find ways to shore up your boss’s weak areas, you are laying the foundation for a strong work partnership

Give your manager feedback on how they are doing

  1. At MMC, most feedback sessions are mutual. Because smart managers will use your feedback to become better managers. If not, at least they will know you are a straight shooter who can be relied on to tell it like it is

Always give your boss two chances to get it right before going over their head

  1. Do not try and run around your boss to the next level of management without warning them first. It is the right thing to do, and usually produces worthwhile results

If you find your current job not exciting, let them know that you are making a move in advance, and if possible, by recruiting a replacement for your old position.

  1. Example: a guy announces he is leaving the group when he is carefully chosen to undertake an important project. Do not leave your old boss in the lurch — even if they deserve it for the way you were treated. It is just not decent. Plus It isn’t in your best long term interests to generate enemies within the company. Instead, ease the transition in every possible way. Give them plenty of advance notice. Help in selecting someone to fill your old position. Stick around long enough to help train the newcomer. And have some logical career opportunities that you can articulate as the reason you’re leaving to pursue something new.

Never burn your bridges with old bosses.

  1. Things change pretty rapidly at times. You never know when an old boss might pop up in a position of influence in the future. Therefore be careful not to leave any boss on unfavorable terms. It may come back to haunt you later.

Chapter 3 How to be a good team leader

Main idea:

In strong companies, the best employees have their pick of places to work. To attract that type of employee to the department or division you manage, you have to offer an opportunity for them to excel

Chapter 3 Support idea:

Communicate objectives with simplicity and clarity

  1. Managers often set the direction, and the team members make the day-to-day decisions

Set up regular feedback meetings with the team members

  1. Short, focused meetings on a weekly basis with each team member keeps them moving rather than guessing. Be accessible. Talk about progress, about priorities and any problems that are emerging

Give your team a hill to climb

  1. A challenge can be great fun and highly motivational. Do not let it get it out of hand though! Look for innovative ways to compete against other teams or departments

Give credit to your team members

  1. Build team loyalty by handing out informal awards or other tokens of recognition. Make certain every employee feels like a valuable contributor to the team effort.

Always be the first to take the blame for mistakes

  1. If anything backfires, take the heat yourself and your team will respond with greater loyalty, and your manager will respect you for accepting ultimate responsibility for the team’s performance

Always set an example. Act the way you expect them to act

  1. Team subconsciously take their cue from attitudes and actions of their managers. Make certain the corporate culture you are encouraging is appropriate, productive and sustainable

Whenever an opportunity to make a presentation to the senior management comes along, have one of your associate do it instead of you

  1. It will not only motivate your team, but also will reflect well on you as a manager, since it will show that you trust your team members, that they know their stuff and can do a good job. And, the team will jump at the chance (If they do the work, they probably know more than you do)

Prepare a team of successors, not a designated heir (even if you are just going for vacations)

  1. Instead of grooming one person as the crown prince to take over the team, work towards developing the entire team for future management positions. You can then look at your next career move, comfortable in the fact a base of competence exists from which someone can be appointed to take over your position

Losing your temper as a boss never helps anyone

  1. Stay calm. Do not put fingers just yet. Find out why the mistake happened. Look for ways to avoid it happening again and get on with the company’s business

Stay flexible. New business opportunities can rise quickly

  1. Introduce Scrum

Never hesitate to roll up your sleeves and pitch in

  1. Do not be afraid to do some of the grunt work alongside your team members, particularly if a tight deadline is looming. It builds morale and team spirit

Sometimes, the boss has to be a designated jerk

  1. When dealing with another division of the company, the boss might have to yell and scream a bit, and act like a jerk. That way, the rest of the team can come across as reasonable people, who are being forced to action by a madman. This is sort of a variation of the good cop / bad cop negotiating ploy — btw, your associate should be the bad cop

Manage your team one person at a time

  1. Most teams are made up people with differing personalities, work habits, and management needs. A good manager adapts the input provided for each team member to their individual personalities rather than trying a one-size-fits-all approach

Be a mentor for your team members

  1. Constantly be alert to opportunities for team members to move ahead in the company. Provide them with direction and expand their personal skills. It is good for them, good for the team, and good for the company
  2. Explain to your team how you reach decisions, and the thought process you follow
  3. Send team members to meetings in your place
  4. Let team members work in other company divisions sometimes so they get to know what happens over there
  5. Allocate time for team members to take continuing education courses
  6. Arrange lunches with managers from other divisions and take someone from your team with you
  7. Help them prepare for important presentations. They may even do a dummy run with you first so you can critique them
  8. Give team members important assignments that will expose them to the company’s senior management team
  9. Take an active and genuine interest in each team member’s career prospects. Offer advice on how to move ahead with the company

Strike an effective balance between being liked and being respected by your team members

  1. Try and treat each team member even-handedly. You want them to know you are on their side, yet you also need to be able to point out the truth when something needs improving. The ideal balance is achieved when you can be friendly to each member of the team, without them considering you be a close friend. That leaves you room to manage effectively. (You can’t continue to gossip with your associates. You need to set and example… expand further)

If you have do year-end reviews of team members, give them frequent feedback on how they’re doing all through the year. That avoids end of year shocks.

  1. Each team member should turn up to their annual review already knowing they will fare if you’ve done a good job a manager. By providing feedback throughout the year, team members have the chance to take actions to improve those areas in which they are weak. It also provides information for them on how to get things back on track if there have been any mistakes or missteps. They can improve their rating while they still have a chance to do something about it.

Take the time and effort to hire smart is worthwhile. The right new employee makes all the difference in the world

  1. Maersk hires people more based on raw talent rather than previous experience. Some ideas on interviewing potential new hires:
  2. Use a hill interview pattern — start with a few easy questions to put them at ease, then move into the challenging part of the interview and end with some easy questions so they feel confident going into their next interview
  3. Interview more to get a feel for their problem solving abilities than their knowledge. Can they think logically and creatively, even about a subject they no factual basis to start from? That will tell a lot about their thought processes.
  4. Case case case
  5. Where possible, standardize your questions. By asking the same questions to a variety of candidates, you will quickly be able to identify key personality and mental ability differences between them

Keep it fun

  1. Productive teams build camaraderie and morale by sharing experiences together — both hard work and good fun stuff. Loosen up as often as possible, and look for fun ways to make special events memorable for everyone that attends. In most business areas, there are often two distinct approaches that can be taken — somber or light — hearted. As often as possible and as appropriately as required, choose the light-hearted option more frequently. Your team will love it, and at the very least it will show you don’t take yourself too seriously

Chapter 4 How to communicate and find your own voice

Main Idea:

At times, yelling is the most appropriate way to get a message across. Other times, whispering is far more effective. Success in business communication, is based on knowing which tool to use in any given situation.

Chapter 4 Support idea:

Develop your own communication style

  1. Match your personal communication style to your personality. Though, you can learn, trying to copy someone else’s style won’t work necessarily — you wont be as effective as the person that style belongs to

Try and read between the lines when asked a question

  1. Questions, in addition to being a request for information, can also be a suggestion, a reminder, a scolding or a setup to let you strut your knowledge. Always take a moment to reflect on the context before your answer any questions

Detailed information implies truthfulness

  1. When you are making a point, the more details you provide the greater the credibility. Details imply the the truth, and numbers imply facts. Get specific if you want to be believed.

Know when it is time to sell and when it is time to present

  1. In selling mode, the message is featured oriented, delivered with gusto and ended with a call to buy. The motivation is to create action. In presenting mode, balanced analysis (including the positives and the negatives) is called for. The motivation is to inform. Knowing which mode to use in any situation is the key.

Praise in public, chastise in private

  1. If you think someone did a great job, share it with lots of people, especially with management. On the other hand, if someone botches things up, work through it with them in private. It avoids embarrassment and allows them to focus on real issues

When giving feedback, make it clear, specific and actionable

  1. Do not be ambiguous. Make your suggestions crystal clear and concise. Also make suggestions on what actions should now be taken to improve the idea

Use memos effectively

  1. The best reasons to send out memos are:
  2. To keep everyone in a large project on the same page
  3. To save someone from duplicating the work you’ve done
  4. To let influential people know what you are up to

Always ask “ Do I really need to go to this meeting?” and once there “ Do I need to stay any longer?”

  1. Often you can achieve the same objective a meeting more efficiently by email, phone or by sending a team member in your place. And once you attend any meeting, do not hesitate to excuse yourself it it becomes apparent the meeting is not about what you think

Discuss the analysis at meetings, not the data

  1. If everyone has the chance to read the data and conclusions before the meeting, you can use the time available to flag key issues, discuss key questions go into the strategic implications. Look for ways to make meeting strategic discussions rather than simply presenting vast amounts of facts and raw data

Solve controversial issues before the meeting

  1. A public disagreement can derail any meeting. It is far better to sort any controversial issues out beforehand with the key people. Never spring surprises in meetings if you want to actually accomplish something

Run good meetings

  1. Start on time and finish on time
  2. Stick to the agenda or the topic under discussion
  3. Cut off the windbags and encourage the silent ones
  4. People can’t fall asleep or tune out of the meeting if it is small. Therefore, make meetings as small as possible
  5. Use whatever inducements are required: food, entertainment, giveaways, etc.
  6. Use the last five minutes to assignments and next steps
  7. Follow-up ruthlessly, consistently, and thoroughly (super important. Send out follow ups and action points)

When writing emails, know your software package

  1. Numerous office embarrassments have been caused by people sending personal emails to much larger distribution groups by accident — simply because they did not know what the email package’s commands actually did. Even a simple misspelling of someone’s email address can lead to some real problems if your email gets read by the wrong persons

Email has no social skills

  1. People tend to very terse and informal with their e-mail communications. They also tend to not bother with good manners or politeness in e-mail-the complete opposite of what people are like in face-to-face meetings. Therefore, keep in mind how your message will come across to the reader. Be less demanding or abrupt and couch your e-mails as requests rather than definitive commands. Concentrate on being more sociable and a little less efficient.
  2. If you’ve got the chance, call or see them in person

Don’t believe every email you received.

  1. If you get an e-mail from the Queen her majesty, don’t start telling all your friends about it just yet. E-mail pranks are very popular. In fact, some of the best pranks don’t even involve hacking — someone just sneaks into your office while you’re away and sends out an e-mail from your computer in your name. Doing that, they can fire people, give people the day off, give people a pay rise and so on. Therefore, if an e-mail looks unbelievable, it just might be.

Chapter 5 How to manage your career: (need more input)

While being successful in your current position is important, do not forget to manage your overall career effectively as well. The person who cares most about your career is yourself, therefore, do not leave it anyone else’s hand

Chapter 4 Support idea:

Know yourself before seeking your next job

  1. What type of personality do you have? Do you like being at the center of the action, or do you prefer stability? Are intellectual challenges important? Before you decide whether to apply for a new job, stop and check how it aligns with your personal character traits. Make certain it is a good fit.

Sometimes the frog job can make you a prince

  1. Most people work towards being appointed to the most high-visibility job available. However, that’s not always the best place for you to gain the experience that may be required to round off your personal package of skills, so you can move upwards and onwards with the company. Look beneath the surface. Sometimes, there may be a job which looks more like a sideways move more than an upwards move, which will allow you to prepare for an even greater level of future responsibility. Do not hesitate to take the job that’s disguised as a frog. With a kiss of life, it might make you into a prince.

Before you interview for a new job, think about what you’d do if you were hired.

  1. Do some research and have some viable ideas on how you would approach the job if hired. Be prepared with some ideas on how you specialist skills could be applied successfully in the new position to create added value for the company. Even if it’s an informal situation, take some time to prepare beforehand. It will allow you to make a strong first impression

Chapter 6: How to balance your work-life

If you are reading this book, you are probably at the beginning stage of your career.

Chapter 4 How to be communicate idea:

At times, yelling is the most appropriate way to get a message across. Other times, whispering is far more effective. Success in business communication, is based on knowing which tool to use in any given situation.

Chapter 4 Support idea:

Chapter 7: How to embrace culture difference

Nicolas Easton

Written by

Came from startup, Nicolas is currently an internal consultant at Maersk, working on its transformation. He received an MBA and MPhil from Oxford University

What I learned at Maersk: Rookie’s survival guide to succeeding in large corporations

Derived from the author’s own learnings, What I learned at Maersk will reveal the problem-solving, collaboration, communication, and leadership techniques necessary to thrive in a corporate environment. Each lesson will be coupled with anecdotes from actual projects.

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