Kraines Gerald - Management Productivity Multipliers

GERALD KRAINES, MD

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, PARIVEDA SOLUTIONS

This edition first published in 2021 by Career Press, an imprint of

Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

With offices at:
65 Parker Street, Suite 7
Newburyport, MA 01950
www.careerpress.com
www.redwheelweiser.com

Copyright 2021 by Pariveda Solutions, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

ISBN: 978-1-63265-183-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request.

Cover design by Kathryn Sky-Peck
Cover image by iStock.com
Interior by Maureen Forys, Happenstance Type-O-Rama
Typeset in Warnock Pro and Avenir Next

Printed in Canada
MAR

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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I dedicate this book to
Cynsie Kraines and Robert Krock.

I WANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE the enormous contributions of two people in writing this book:

My wife, Cynsie Kraines, often says that I have studied life and leadership, whereas she has lived life and leadership. I have learned so much from her about how value-adding leaders really add value. She has been the backbone and source of energy for 30 years in building our firm, The Levinson Institute, which is now part of Pariveda Solutions.

My James Boswell and VP, knowledge management, Robert Krock, who after 30 years knows what I am going to say before I say it, often before I even think it. Documenting the principles over the past 30 years and writing this book without Robert's contributions would have been impossible.

As many of my clients and colleagues over the years know, I have learned as much from them as they have from me. Much of this book emerged from working with Denis Turcotte, Eduardo Padilla, Mikael Gordon, Jim Allen, Karen Rosene-Montella, Fabiaan van Vrekhem, Warren Knowlton, Gerry Yonas, John Dyer, Barry Hurewitz, Brian Gifford, Zoran Veselic, Ben Duster, Rafa Ramos, Steve Jenkins, Mario Botas, Francisco Martnez Colunga, Rob Hennemuth, Nick Stanage, Anne Bakar, Ferio Pugliese, Mark Fuller, Mike Broz, Eddie Opler, and many more than can fit on this page.

Finally, I want to acknowledge and thank Bruce Ballengee, Pariveda Solutions' president and CEO, and Kerry Stover, Pariveda's COO, for incorporating and agreeing to steward the Levinson IP and its purpose: to have a profound impact on society by bringing basic laws of human nature into our work organizations. For Cynsie and I now lead Levinson by Pariveda!

I HAVE KNOWN and admired Gerry Kraines for the past 40 years. That span of time covers my first class at The Levinson Institute prior to Gerry's ownership and has seen me working for four companies in a variety of capacitiesfrom a plant manager, to division CFO, to divisional vice president of sales, to vice president of group manufacturing, to a divisional president of a Fortune 500 company, to running multibillion-dollar businesses while living in Europe and working for a large glass conglomerate, to running two companies on my own. One of these was a very large public materials company based in Europe and the other was a portfolio company of one of the largest private equity firms. All of the above needed fundamental and profound change and I often relied on Gerry's wisdom to help me in making that happen.

First, I must say that Gerry gets it. He very quickly understands the correct answer and course of action where real people are involved. His ability to listen first to understand before speaking is a good lesson to take to heart. Even though he instinctively understands the solution, one of the things I have always admired most is his willingness to use the journey to the answer as a teaching moment. Often, that journey has its own unique twists and turns. I learned that by taking the time to make the journey with him, real synergies and better-than-expected outcomes often happen.

He worked extremely well with the various teams I constituted, often when fundamental restructuring, hard work, and shortened timeframes were involved. Gerry quickly earned the trust of team members and helped them in their own journeys to better understand more optimal use of the human resources at their disposal. Where fundamental change was neededas it often wasGerry provided excellent learning templates for my teams. Many of these had come from past work he had done in making critical assessments of people's skills and potential levels. In other cases, he was very receptive to working with us in creating de novo solutions.

Through it all, his fundamental compassion for people and the wonderful way in which he engaged our business leaders to arrive at their own solutions became a hallmark of our times together. My sense was then, and is now, that Gerry has never been confronted with a real-life assignment where he was unable to see the path forward. Also, I would have to believe that where leaders took his processes to heart and were willing to embrace the learning, excellent and fundamental change could occur. It certainly did in the areas in which we worked at Owens Corning, at Pilkington Glass/Libbey-Owens-Ford, at Morgan Crucible (now Morgan Advanced Materials), and at Graham Packaging.

I always came away from the times we worked together much better for the knowledge we had gained and saw my business leaders and their people becoming significantly more effective. Gerry is correct that many CEOs and senior division heads are reluctant to take the time to understand the power of his methodology. In my opinion of the CEOs today, I believe only a very small fraction are truly transformational. This is disturbing. However, for those who are capable, motivated, and willing to do it, it will certainly make a big difference. Gerry's teachings can greatly help their efforts.

One specific area is related to accountability in organizations. I gained so much in working with Gerry to better hold my organizations and their leaders accountable. I and the key people accountable for cascading it down throughout the organizations owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude. It worked and continues to work well.

I have always believed that Gerry is at his absolute best in the field working with a variety of leaders in many and varied environments. In these settings, he is able to bring to the table collective wisdom and teachings and adapt these and the new learning that usually ensues, to create even better future paradigms. I see this as a win-win and a beautiful way to move the needle forward.

WARREN KNOWLTON

FORMER CEO, Graham Packaging Company; and former CEO,

Morgan Crucible (now Morgan Advanced Materials)

MARCH 2020

WHAT MAKES PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES so successful and so respected? Is it all due to nature and to natural talents? How much of a role do instruction and coaching play in developing outstanding, record-breaking skills? Is it the 20,000 practice repetitions that we read so much about?