The Student of History

By Geoffrey Precourt '70

The letter didn't mince words. Alan ("A.G.") Lafley '69 was mad. Ripping mad.

Mad-that-makes-you-pay-attention-because-it's-mad-backed- up-with-a-title mad. The object of his affliction was a piece of the physical plant, a building, as Lafley wrote, that was "an eyesore from the outside and a catastrophe on the inside."

And architecture wasn't the only problem. Morale was at issue as well: The structure, the letter continued, was so bad that it engendered discontent and poor performance from its inhabitants -- the kind of corporate eyesore that not only diminished an institution but also compromised quality of work.

For seven months, Lafley and his colleagues had lived with the indignity of this facility. And now it was time for action. Lafley had the title of president. He had the vision. He had the pen: "We urge those with responsibility to take immediate steps to improve Dunham's interior," Lafley wrote, "by at least renovating the unhappy lounges and the useless basements as well as improving the looks of the building's exterior by dressing up the bare walls."

It was May 1966 -- the last time that A.G. Lafley was the titular head of anything that wasn't headquartered in Cincinnati. As president of the Class of '69, he also held the title of secretary to the Student Senate. And, as part of that office, it was Lafley's duty to put to paper an endorsement of a Spectator editorial the previous week that had called for a reconsideration of Dunham, the freshman dormitory.

So, he put pen to paper.

And nothing happened.

So much for the clout of office.

Of course, there was a whole lot more going on that week in May: Alex Cruden '68 wanted a reduction in bowling fees for the lanes in the basement of Bristol, and Mike Seitzinger '69 was asking the Faculty Committee on Student Affairs to allow sophomores to have cars on campus. The record is foggy on the lane fee, but it wasn't long before second-year students could drive on the Hill. It was only A.G. Lafley's petition that would go down to ignominious defeat.

Still, he insists, "I knew what I was talking about. I lived on the third floor of Dunham dormitory -- on the back side, with a beautiful view of the asphalt."

In recent years, Lafley has been more successful translating experience and passion into results. Presumably the place where Lafley now toils over his work is more conducive to productivity than Dunham dorm. For the last three-and-a-half years, he has been president/chief executive officer of The Procter & Gamble Company and, in early 2002, added chairman to those titles. P&G is the largest U.S. consumer-products company, employing 112,000 people to market more than 350 branded products to more than five billion consumers in 130 countries.

During his tenure, Business Week observed, "Lafley has led a turnaround that has defied expectations." Indeed, three-and-a-half years ago, the task seemed daunting. The company he took over had suffered from a series of buck-shot new-product introductions -- an operating style that reasoned that one big success could atone for any number of failures. Lafley's vision was to refocus on big brands. The company's immediate task, he declared, was to rebuild its four core businesses (laundry, baby care, hair care and feminine care), all of which had been losing market share. The company's biggest brands -- Tide, Pampers, Bounty paper towels and Crest -- were the future. Products that didn't measure up to the core-business or big-brand standard -- Jiff peanut butter and Crisco cooking oils, to name two -- were sold off as relics of the past.

Changing the direction of a multi-national consumer-products company is every bit as difficult as getting consensus on a new design for Dunham. And Wall Street took an instantly skeptical view of Lafley's new direction. P&G stock dropped $4 on the news of his appointment and continued to tumble the next three weeks before bottoming out at $53. ("I wasn't exactly greeted with cheers," Lafley since has observed.) But Wall Street was wrong. During the three-plus years of Lafley leadership, P&G's stock price has climbed by 68 percent, while the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index fell by 32 percent.

Now, Wall Street observers compare A.G. Lafley -- very favorably -- with such CEO icons as Southwest Air's Herb Kelleher or General Electric's legendary Jack Welch. While Lafley insists, "I am not by any stretch of the imagination the celebrity CEO," the press insists just the opposite. In recent months, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Forbes and Business Week have taken lengthy looks at the Lafley style.

The Journal decreed, "Mr. Lafley is an executive who isn't afraid to make tough decisions, but is far more politic and personable than [his predecessor.]" Business Week wrote that the "mild-mannered chief executive has worked to revive both urgency and hope . . . Lafley is leading the most sweeping transformation of the company since it was founded by William Procter and James Gamble in 1837." Fortune described the man it calls the "un-CEO:" "He's a listener, not a story-teller. He's likeable but not awe-inspiring . . . He has rallied his troops not with big speeches and dazzling promises, but by hearing them out (practically) one at a time. It's a little dull, perhaps, workaday dull."

It's a "dull" style that's been effective for Lafley since his days on the Hamilton Student Senate: "I was a member of Psi U, but I didn't go with the herd. When we wanted to know how a certain issue might play out in different parts of the College community -- when the Senate was worried about what others would do and think -- I volunteered to go out and find out. Because I had a lot of good friends at different houses and among independents, it was easy enough for me to come back with an answer."

Lafley brought the same incipient management style to intra-fraternity affairs. "We had a number of heated issues. I've always been a pretty good listener, and my role was to try to get to some sort of resolution, to take action, to get something done. A lot of people wanted to sit and debate. But I was more of a get-something-done person. We'd all listen to people sound off. When the energy started to ebb, I'd speak up. "If I hear this correctly, this is the choice, either A or B. Let's decide and move on.'"

From the halls of Psi U to a P&G board of directors meeting, Lafley is consistent in style, confident in the process of debate and discussion. When different groups within the company wanted to take different approaches to outsourcing, Lafley brought representatives from the opposing groups before the board. Again, when the energy ebbed, the president/ceo stepped in, summed up choices A and B, and asked for a decision.