An interview with Bob Seelert

The Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi discovered early on that marketing is the lifeblood of business.

By [[kim.johnson,Kim S. Johnson]], MBA 2011
December 21, 2009

The Mason School of Business had the distinct pleasure of hosting Bob Seelert, Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi this month.

Over the course of the week, Mr. Seelert shared with faculty and students numerous stories and words of wisdom he has amassed over his over 40 years as a captain of industry.
 
I had the chance to catch up with Mr. Seelert and chat with him about his book, Start with the Answer, why he encourages people to "go with their gut," ethics in business and much more.
 
Kim S. Johnson: Mr. Seelert, you earned your MBA from Harvard Business School, can you share with me a little bit about your experience there and what classes or experiences made the most impression on you?
 
Bob Seelert: The first thing is I developed an incredible appreciation for the case study method of teaching. The shear act of going through three cases a day, six days a week for two years was an incredible experience. Irrespective of the function, I got a tremendous amount out of that. The ability to be confronted with a set of facts, to analyze and determine what I'd do if I was Mr. X. Then to be able to articulate that in front of my peers and defend my point of view relative to their thinking and analysis—which would sometimes be different—was something that was a great, great experience.
 
Functionally, the thing I enjoyed the most as an MBA and that shaped my career was that I really got turned on by marketing. I ended up concluding that marketing was the lifeblood of business irrespective of what business you were in. For example, if you're in the banking business you first and foremost have to be a marketing kind of company because you have to meet the needs of customers and consumers in terms of their financial requirements. Essentially the hidden secret of all companies is marketing insight. From there I decided that marketing was the key to business success and it was the part that I wanted to be in.
 
Thirdly, while at school I had a professor, whom I refer to in the book, named George von Peterffy. He was very big on convincing me to be and perform at the best I could, every minute of every day. And there would be no exceptions to that. So I basically took that up as a credo to always be ready for everything but perform at my best and I've carried that through everything I've done.
 
KSJ: In your book, Start with the Answer, you start off with a chapter titled "Go with your gut." Can you explain why this is so paramount for a leader?
 
Mr. Seelert: I put that in because it was an insight from my mother that changed my life. If you grew up when I grew up you would be unlikely to challenge conventional thinking and expert advice. So when my high school guidance counselor told me that applying to Harvard was ridiculous, plus it cost 20 bucks and nobody like me would ever get in, I considered that to be expert advice since this guy is the guidance counselor and he should know what he's talking about.

But my mother had the intuition to think her boy had what it took to get accepted. And the worst thing was it would cost us was 20 bucks. That's not a terrible bounty to pay when you consider the upside. And that was my mother's kind of intuition. So essentially you have to be weary of so-called expert advice because it might not be as expert as you think. And I think that if you go with your gut sometimes that can be very valuable.
 
KSJ: How about a student who has no background in marketing or advertising? How can they go with their gut when they've been exposed to relatively little in the field?
 
Mr. Seelert: You're going to build that experience when you get on the job. What you have to do is have the passion and determine if you think it's something you’re going to be good at and you're going to enjoy. If you have that feeling about it, you will get the experience on the job.
 
When I checked in at General Foods Corporation, my first job after business school, I had developed a respect for marketing as a function and I thought I had the analytical skills and intuition to be good at it. But in truth, I didn't have any practical experience. I'd never done it a day in my life. My summer between my first and second years I was married and had an apartment with my wife in Melrose, Mass. She was pregnant and I couldn't leave so I spent my summer internship at the Boston Gas company in the Systems Department.  It didn't have anything to do with marketing and so I didn't begin to accumulate any experience until I got hired in after graduation.
 
KSJ: I was actually wondering about your internship experience...
 
Mr. Seelert: Yes, my internship experience was relevant primarily in the sense that I had projects that I executed flawlessly and on time in the course of the summer. So I proved that I could attack something and complete it with aplomb in a relatively short period of time. But other than that, it didn’t have anything to do with marketing.
 
KSJ: What is the value of corporate culture in the success of the companies you've worked for?
 
Mr. Seelert: All companies have a culture which can be good or bad. It can be utilized as a resource to build an enterprise or drag it down. Within advertising, the culture from company to company can be very different. In the book I talk about my first day at Saatchi & Saatchi and then when I went to Bates. And these were two totally different animals. One of them was the sea of humanity epitomized by a guy in a tie dyed t-shirt and green hair and the other was twelve old men in business suits and ties.
 
It's kind of stunning that one place never would have accepted the guy with the tie dyed t-shirt and green hair and on the same token the guys in the suits, that were all quite aged compared to the other group, never would have made it at Saatchi & Saatchi. So even within an industry companies can have dramatically different kinds of cultures. They attract different kinds of people  and repel others and that has a lot to do with your success or lack thereof.
 
KSJ: MBAs will be entering a business climate in which there is not a lot of trust placed in business leaders because of continual escalating unethical practices. What advice would you give MBAs on navigating the slippery slope they may encounter out in the business world?
 
Mr. Seelert: I've always considered myself a person of high integrity. In fact I once participated in coining this goofy little acronym called OHCCIMR—Open, Honest, Candid Communication, Integrity and Mutual Respect were things I wanted to cultivate in the company and we developed this little term. People would wonder what the words were but one of them was integrity.
 
After I went to the Aspen Institute in 1982 , I wrote a personal statement that basically put down the values, beliefs, principles and practices by which I stood for and what I'd built my career on. And in truth I wrote that in 1982 but if I were to rewrite it today there's probably not even a couple of words I would change.
 
So I've kind of been grounded in values, beliefs and principles and I believe it's up to everybody to determine who they are and where they draw the line in the sand as to who they are and what they stand for. That's the way you become an inspirational leader of an organization. To really stand for something that people can really count on when you take them into the fray under that banner. I believe it's a very important topic and it's a mandatory for leaders to be able to articulate who they are and what they stand for. It ultimately comes down to a personal reconciliation of who you are and what you're all about.
 
For more information about this Q&A or the Mason School of Business Marketing Club, contact Kim S. Johnson at [[m|kim.johnson]].