Listen, André de Ruyter’s new memoir is a rip-roaring must-read. The shocks and one-liners just keep on coming. Major revelations are presented alongside delicious pettiness (he claims a former Sasol CEO was more focused on the “Sasol blue shade” of tablecloths than on strategy) and amusing details of De Ruyter’s OCD tendencies (he constantly wants to straighten picture frames in government offices).
Crucially, it is deeply alarming. It details how the fraught and broken inner workings of high-level government are paralysing Eskom and hurting South Africa. The disgraceful neglect of power stations and the indifference and ineptitude among Eskom staff are laid bare, along with corruption inside the utility and the networks of thieving and sabotage. A portrait of an incompetent new Eskom board leaves the reader with little hope for the future.
Some questions, however.
It’s not clear that De Ruyter was successful in a crucial element of New CEO 101: listening to and winning the hearts and minds of your workforce. Yes, he inherited staff who didn’t have the right skills, were overpaid and often apathetic, and some stole from the company. But that was his reality, and before anything else, he should have found a more constructive and clever way to get mass buy-in for his agenda, while reflecting workers’ concerns and ambitions. Instead, his approach was top-down, with the book detailing scene after scene of seagull management (flying in, sh*tting on workers, and flying out).
De Ruyter also comes across as being particularly bad at another CEO requirement: getting the main shareholder on your side. In this case, the shareholder was often openly antagonistic, undermining, extremely dysfunctional due to infighting and inaction, and
prone to bad decisions. But again, that is the reality that he had to work with.
Perhaps if De Ruyter were a bit more pragmatic and politically savvy, and tried to build individual relationships with the key players who tried to block his way, it would have helped Eskom more. This may speak to some arrogance on the side of De Ruyter, who doesn’t really admit to making any major mistakes over the three years (except for the timing of the eNCA broadcast). That makes him the most perfect CEO, probably ever.
Troubling also is confirmation that the book had been “years” in the making (De Ruyter was only CEO for three years.) Throughout the book, he chronicles the toll an excruciating schedule took on him and his family. Yet, he found the time to write a book. Perhaps Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has a point in saying that it distracted De Ruyter from running the utility.
Say you appointed a CEO for a dumpster-fire company that is R422 billion in debt while failing to produce products as most of its factories are falling apart and being looted. Would you be happy for him to take on a side job as a writer - especially of a tell-all exposé? In this case, the company also devastated an economy and caused endless misery to millions of people.
Then there’s the timing of the publication. Landmark CEO autobiographies are usually published years after their terms ended – for example, Lee Iacocca only published his account of his time at Ford six years after he was fired. Phil Knight’s memoir came out 12 years after he resigned as Nike's CEO.
In the latest episode of HBO’s Succession, a character notes that information is like a bottle of fine wine. “You store it, you hoard it, you save it for a special occasion, and then you smash someone's f*cking face in with it."
Perhaps De Ruyter should have taken a beat before smashing the bottle. As South Africa is facing a Stage 8 winter, key decision-makers are now distracted by defending themselves against his allegations, while launching lawsuits and other investigations into De Ruyter. He clearly wanted to defend his own legacy immediately – but at what cost?
Throughout the book, De Ruyter makes much of his Dutch heritage (his parents emigrated from the Netherlands). He credits it for his irreverence, disregard for hierarchy and forthrightness. But as the joke about Dutch self-conviction goes: “What are the first words of Dutch babies? ‘Volgens mij’ (according to me).”
It bears reminding: this is the gospel only according to De Ruyter.
Enjoy your weekend,
Helena
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