Top Execs Slowly Becoming Computer Savvy
Computer literacy is a basic requirement for workers in the Information Age, but top corporate executives don’t always hold themselves to the same standards. Many CEOs are still technological holdouts, preferring to let others retrieve their e-mail, do their Internet research and use the tools of the digital revolution.
But there are signs that this era is ending. Nearly three years ago, Doremus, a New York-based ad agency, compiled a study showing that 20% of all top business leaders 45 and older were without a personal computer on their desks. Doremus is taking another look, and it’s finding that attitudes among the corporate elite are changing.
“Every chief executive now has embraced the idea that they need to have a computer on their desk,” said Lou Rubin, a Doremus executive vice president.
More executives than ever are hip to the new technologies because of the Internet explosion, Rubin said, especially as it becomes easier to navigate the Net. “It’s like a TV set,” Rubin said. “You turn it on. There’s no longer the technological challenge of how to use it.”
Interviews with a small sampling of local corporate executives revealed similar attitudes. While there still is a hard-core group that resists new technology or might even be labeled cyberphobic, the consensus is that leaders must be acquainted with electronic tools. There’s one big caveat: If a top executive is logging too much time in front of a computer, he probably is not fulfilling his key role to communicate and lead.
Executives who decide to bone up can find comfort by studying alongside their brethren. Glen A. Holden, the 70-year-old chief executive of Holden, the Los Angeles-based parent of Capital Life Insurance Co., couldn’t type two years ago when he took part in a retreat for techno-illiterate leaders conducted by Computer Associates International, a Long Island, N.Y.-based software giant.
At a Scottsdale, Ariz., resort, Holden learned the basics of word processing, mouse use, e-mail and the Internet. Today he is not a technological enthusiast by any stretch, but also he’s no longer intimidated or dependent on others to check out a database. There’s a PC on his desk, and he carries a laptop or a Newton personal digital assistant when he’s away from home.
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When Computer Associates began offering its retreats in 1993, 75 top executives participated. In 1997, the number had increased to 108. The retreats have attracted an A-list of corporate names. Burt Manning, chairman of ad agency giant J. Walter Thompson Worldwide, who retired Jan. 1, attended last year. Other past attendees: Frank Stankard, vice chairman of American Express, and Eli Broad, chairman and CEO of Los Angeles-based Sun America.
Unlike some participants, Manning, 66, had known how to type since high school. About five years ago, the ad agency head became fascinated with news reports of the emerging technology revolution. So he signed up for three online services. “I needed to find out about it,” Manning said.
At the retreat, he got the hang of e-mail, already in wide use at his agency. “I needed to know this to deal with some of the information that was coming my way,” Manning said. “It’s a mistake [for a chief executive] not to be at home with” new technologies.
Typical retreat attendees are old-guard executives in their 50s and 60s who never learned to type because they figured they’d never need to, said Christine Moore, Computer Associates’ director of business programs worldwide. They grew up before the PC revolution and, with jampacked schedules, few had time to learn computer fundamentals. “Suddenly, they’ve been left out in the cold,” she said.
That can be humbling and humiliating for executives used to being in command. Moore observed one well-placed participant lingering outside as a seminar was about to begin. “I was thinking of not going in,” the executive confessed to her. “I’m going to be one of the stupidest ones in the class.”
“It’s difficult for a person with such responsibility to admit there’s something over which they have no control,” Moore said.
At times, students have become enlightened in unforeseen ways. Moore recalled a retreat where a high-level manager swore her company didn’t have a Web site. One of the trainers showed her otherwise. “Oh, my God, we do have one!” the executive blurted out. Further mouse-clicking revealed the Web site featured a picture of that same executive, and she didn’t find the likeness flattering.
Of course, there’s always been a core of corporate leaders who have used new technologies comfortably. Roger C. Beach, the 61-year-old chairman and chief executive of El Segundo-based Unocal, has been computer-savvy since 1980. As the head of an international firm, he relies on e-mail to keep tabs on his subordinates in time zones around the globe. A chemical engineer by training, Beach logs on to his computer five or six times a day.
“I don’t go anywhere without my laptop,” he said. “It’s the modern-day equivalent of the telephone.”
Likewise, Noel Irwin-Henstchel, chairman and CEO of AmericanTours International, the Los Angeles-based travel firm best known for its motor coach tours for foreign visitors to the U.S., relies on her laptop to stay in touch with her staff and clients around the world. The change took place 18 months ago. “So many of our clients were starting to use e-mail, this was the best way to communicate cost-effectively,” she said.
Lynda Resnick, co-owner of Roll International, parent of the Franklin Mint and Teleflora, is a globe-trotter with homes in Los Angeles; Aspen, Colo.; and Philadelphia. But she still manages to be hands-on, thanks to new technologies.
Unlike many of her male counterparts, Resnick has been typing since elementary school. “My mother used to say, ‘You never know what will happen in life,’ ” she explained.
Today Resnick uses computers every day, and videoconferencing has been a routine part of her business life since the early 1990s. “It’s allowed me to be anywhere in the globe,” she said.
If Resnick is in Los Angeles and the Franklin Mint staff on the East Coast needs her to examine a porcelain doll, no problem. “I can get online with my people,” Resnick said. Her staff photographs the goods with a special camera. “They can send live pictures of the products they want to show me. It’s almost better than being there.”
Resnick doesn’t use e-mail much. She prefers the more human connection that a telephone provides. She uses her personal computer to look up information in the Encarta encyclopedia, and she enjoys playing video solitaire when she has a free moment. The Internet? “I don’t have the time,” she said.
But while some managers gush with the enthusiasm of the newly converted, a few other executives see a dark side. Michael Mack, chairman and chief executive of the parent company of San Diego-based Souplantation, a restaurant chain, recognized the importance of his company’s having state-of-the-art information systems to stay on top of daily operational and financial concerns, such as inventory and labor costs. But he discourages too much use of e-mail and voicemail.
While these technologies are supposed to facilitate communication, Mack, 46, believes people often hide behind them. “It can create a cancer in an organization,” he said.
Using e-mail or voicemail to confirm a date for an appointment, is OK, Mack said. But what often happens is that a caller or e-mailer will offer criticism from the relative distance of those venues. “That shouldn’t be allowed,” Mack said. “If you have something to say, say it in person.”
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Mack logs on a few times a day to check on the financial markets, and he uses online banking to keep track of his bills. But he sees little use for new technologies in his role as company leader.
“While it’s helpful to me in my life, I don’t see any applications as a CEO,” he said. “If you find a CEO that’s spending an inordinate time on the computer, they’re probably not doing their job.”
Ward Wieman, a Santa Monica-based business consultant, has seen it. He recounted one company, which he declined to name, where the chief executive spent the day glued to a computer screen as sales fell precipitously. The executive didn’t return urgent phone calls, sometimes for 48 hours, preferring the safe harbor of cyberspace to the tempest of corporate leadership.
“The most successful CEOs spend very little time” on computers, Wieman cautioned.
