Roy H Park, Jr has published a new edition of Sons in the Shadow: Surviving The Family business as An SOB, a book about his business career including stints as CEO of Park Communications Inc. and Park Outdoor. Here’s an excerpt from the book where Roy Park Jr. talks about two management styles which don’t work in out of home.
The 9 to 5 manager
… The first general manager had a practice of parking his briefcase outside his front door when he arrived home at 5:15 PM. He was also a believer not having dinner or socializing with the managers went overnighting in one of the field offices. I’m not saying his method of management was wrong. It might’ve been suitable in many companies. But it wasn’t suitable for Park Outdoor. He was also a firm chain of command manager, never taking time to meet or talk to any of the employees reporting to managers in the field.… he was apparently not worried when brand new competitive board started springing up and Scranton, making our boards look shamefully outdated, and when the cigarette businesses started to appear on those boards he sloughed it off. He also made a little effort to bring in national business, since his New York City ad agency sales trips consisted of flying out of Ithaca early and arriving back at 5:30 the same evening. Questioned on how he could possibly make the many necessary contacts needed at that many agencies in New York, his reply was, “You can’t expect to influence their buying decision anyway, so why waste time and money?” When I came back to outdoor, I also learned the manager passed over an incredible opportunity for a productive addition to our business….a chance to buy from three different billboard plant operators their separate ownership of billboards in a major metropolitan area in New York State had to put the combined operation under our Advertising roof.…An Indiana auto outdoor company bought the three companies at a bargain price and eventually sold the entire market for what was probably a handsome profit to another out of foam company.
The centralizing manager
A second manager pops brought in from another outdoor company, also had a reputation for being an industry professional. He overturned, each division’s autonomy, believing management should be centralized in Ithaca with specialists under his management, experienced in sales, leasing, and operations. General and sales managers at the branch level were unnecessary, since the home office would do the planning and decision-making for the field operations. He opted to have people in Ithaca traveling to various markets, which at the time we spent out of half of New York State in a good part of northern Pennsylvania.… By the time I returned, he had either dismissed or put so much pressure on a former managers, they all left.
Sons in the Shadow: Surviving The Family business as An SOB is on sale at Amazon.
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There are many styles of management. The types Roy Park just described are extremely wrong types, especially for the Out-of-Home business. Very well written by a man who understands the business. I can only assume the manager who flew back and forth to NYC in the same day saw a lot of early matinees on Broadway.
Great message from Mr. Park. I’ve worked under both styles described by Mr. Park, quite frankly, the command style, top down approach in managing, is outdated and has no real place in the modern business world. In my opinion, the managers who are the most successful, respected in a valuable asset to their company are the ones who coach, mentor and help their department heads work through issues or problems rather than beat them over the head for the mistake they’ve made, as well as reinforce positives when they are successful.