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Lesson #4: Know Your Business Inside Out

Article Overview: “I try to keep in touch with the details,” says Murdoch. “I also look at the product daily. That doesn't mean you interfere, but it's important occasionally to show the ability to be involved. It shows you understand what's happening.”

Lesson #4: Know Your Business Inside Out

“I try to keep in touch with the details,” says Murdoch. “I also look at the product daily. That doesn't mean you interfere, but it's important occasionally to show the ability to be involved. It shows you understand what's happening.”

While he understands the pitfalls of micromanaging, Murdoch has never been one to sit back and let someone else call the shots, especially when it comes to his own business. From the printing presses straight on up to the marketing and advertising departments, Murdoch keeps a tight reign on the activities that take place within his company walls.

Murdoch never got too big or too rich to involve himself in the daily running of one of his newspapers. Indeed, because his father had involved the young Murdoch in all aspects of his own newspaper – from sweeping floors to copy-editing – he grew intimately familiar with every aspect of its operation.

In October 1969, after purchasing the Sun in London, he knew he had to make some serious changes. At the time, it had a circulation of 600,00 but was losing over $5 million per year. Murdoch had immediately snatched up this opportunity because he recognized the paper’s potential. He decided that in order to turn the Sun around he would need to transform it from being a broadsheet – a newspaper that measures 17 x 22 inches – to a small tabloid. In order for this change to become a reality, the newspaper’s printing machines would have to be adjusted. This, said the paper’s printers, would not be technically possible. Instead, they suggested buying entirely new machines.

Murdoch, however, was no stranger to the machines and had made himself familiar with their complexities over the years. Immediately, Murdoch climbed onto one of the large machines and opened the control cabinet. He proceeded to pull out a bar and replace it in a different position, which had instantly converted the machine into one capable of printing tabloids. Murdoch’s staff was stunned as they realized that right down to the nitty-gritty of daily production, Murdoch knew everything he needed to know about running his business.

Even today, Murdoch always finds the time to pick up the phone and call anyone at any level of his company, just to check in – and with no advance notice, of course. “They all put up with me, so it encourages me,” Murdoch laughs. “I probably don’t do it enough here.” He even devotes time to meet with executives from 20th Century Fox, one of his subsidiaries, to hear their ideas about plans for future movies.

“I dig in – I like to know what’s going on,” he says. Despite being a multi-billionaire with hundreds of companies under his watch, Murdoch maintains his hands-on management style. For him, there is no detail too small. It is this close eye he keeps on every aspect of his business and his intimate knowledge of its details that has allowed him to reach the heights of success that he has.

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Article Tags: 5 million, broadsheet, circulation, company walls, complexities, control cabinet, london, marketing, micromanaging, murdoch, newspapers, own business, pitfalls, printers, printing machines, stranger, sun, tabloid, tabloids



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