“Arjay Miller lived a life of incredible impact.”
That statement was made by Bernadette Clavier, an administrator at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, upon the occasion of Miller’s passing at the age of 101. Miller is credited with transforming the curriculum of the school as its dean in the Seventies by broadening its scope to integrate the study of social and public policy.
Impact is a measure of effective leadership and in this regard Miller excelled.
He had a distinguished career at Ford Motor Company. He was one of the Whiz Kids, headed by Tex Thornton and included Robert McNamara, hired by Henry Ford II after the Second World War.
The ten men had all worked together in the Army as statisticians plotting bomb coordinates. They sold their expertise as a package and as a result they instituted more professional management approaches to post-War Ford which was trying to undo a generation of sclerotic management.
“The rescue of Ford from a morass of internecine chicanery and chaos cannot be laid at a single person’s feet,” wrote Hemmings Classic Car magazine and cited in Miller’s New York Times obituary, “but Miller unquestionably did a great deal of the heavy lifting to save the company.”
“Miller was instead, a person who could reconcile the realities of interpreting reams of data and inspiring others to apply it logically. His talent allowed him, in turn, to manage an unprecedented war, to help remake a troubled manufacturing giant, and to realize his ultimate legacy by grooming a new generation of top executives.”
Miller eventually became president of Ford in 1963, then vice chairman in 1968. Despite a business disagreement with Ford II that led to his exit from the presidency, Miller stayed on the board till 1986 such was the esteem this Ford colleagues held for him.
Miller’s move to academia was a natural since he had been an academic prior to joining the Army. As dean Miller took a second-tier business school and helped it jump to the very forefront of business schools “through teaching and research.” His principal passion was the intersection of business and government.
Miller was committed to broadening the student experience, says James Van Horne, professor emeritus who worked with Miller at Stanford. Miller “felt that if you could with individuals and organizations and help them be good managers things could be better.”
Impact through better management is integral to Miller’s legacy. And so it’s worthwhile for managers to consider the impact they are having on their people through their leadership. Here are three questions to evaluate your impact.
How are you making things better for people? Put simply, if you cannot manage you cannot lead. Effective managers set clear goals and help people achieve them. They stand ready to support as well as to evaluate for results.
How are you making things better for the organization? Alignment with strategic intentions is essential to managerial effectiveness. When a department is not in alignment, it gets crosswise with the larger organization. Savvy managers always ensure alignment by making certain people know their roles and how those roles affect overall results.
How can you continue to expand your impact? This question gets to the heart of what you can do to improve your ability to manage yourself. Are you keeping abreast professionally? Are you pursuing developmental opportunities? Very importantly, are you considering how you will be remembered? Not because you are looking for a plaque on the wall but so you can focus on how you can help your team continue to improve.
These questions are offered as a means of helping managers think about how what they do matters to others. When looking at a life such as the one led by Arjay Miller we are reminded that what you do matters to people as well as to the organizations they serve.
Note: While I never met Mr. Miller, his house in Ann Arbor when he worked at Ford, is blocks away from mine. I know the house well because it contains a prominent Japanese maple that turns flame red in early fall. I often think of the man when I drive past, and now knowing more about his impact, I will think more deeply.
