Ed Molyneux, CEO of online accounting provider FreeAgent, reviews Allan Leighton’s new book Tough Calls.
Ed Molyneux, CEO of online accounting provider FreeAgent, reviews Allan Leighton’s new book Tough Calls.
In his new book, Allan Leighton asks, ‘What turns an everyday decision into a tough call?’ Leighton, former boss of Asda and chairman of the Royal Mail, reveals, ‘It’s a decision other people don’t want to make.’ This is a position that he has clearly found himself in on numerous occasions.
Leighton is often described as the best- connected man in British business, and here he shamelessly leverages his impressive address book of the great and the good. The result is an engaging, very readable collection of business anecdotes from such luminaries as Sir Terry Leahy and Archie Norman.
The material in Tough Calls is structured around four key categories of decision-making situations, together with advice on strategies of information collection, communication and execution.
Overall, the book is largely an exhortation to ‘use your common sense’, which seems to have been somewhat lacking in the business world’s recent history.
To précis the book in nine words, ‘Take expert advice, trust your own judgement, communicate extensively.’
The format and the cast of characters have much in common with On Leadership, Leighton’s well-received previous work. But in that book the density of valuable nuggets was significantly higher and by the end of this one you can’t help feeling as that Tough Calls could have been a chapter or two in the other book.
It’s perhaps better then to view Tough Calls as a postscript to On Leadership. If you haven’t read the previous book, should you dive straight into this one? That, as they say, is a tough call.
