Tom Glocer, chief executive of Reuters, clearly takes his blog very seriously. For instance, it contains an endearingly pedantic list of his favourite musicians, including Mahler, Grateful Dead, Kanye West and “Kool & the Gang (early)”.

The precision of that final entry marks him down as a man who wants to be thoroughly understood, who wants his staff to know that while the deep funk of 1973’s Jungle Boogie might get him on to the dance floor at the Christmas party, the post-disco pap of 1984’s Cherish will leave him frozen to his chair in horror.

Flippancy aside, the ability to convey to the world exactly what you are about is a great skill for a manager to have - and it looks like Ron Sandler, the new chairman of Northern Rock, might also have the knack.

Let’s finish analysing Mr Glocer’s blog first. His precision doesn’t stop with his musical tastes - his thoughts on the whole tend to be nuanced and elegantly expressed. Take his most recent post, on work-life balance. The Reuters man argues that the debate on this topic tends to presuppose that work can’t be fulfilling:

To insist on a rigid work-life balance always suggests to me that work is some awful Anglo-Saxon torture visited upon the otherwise “free” soul of Rousseau’s natural man.

I can’t imagine any Reuters hack wincing at that sentence. (In keeping with his argument that work isn’t necessarily a weekday chore, he published the post in the very small hours of Sunday morning.)

Mr Glocer says that keeping a blog is an important way for him to get first-hand experience of the digital revolution. But it also provides a usual function for employees, investors and customers, who can use it to get a better sense of where the company is going.

Which brings me to Ron Sandler, the Stanford MBA graduate who has been brought in to sort out the mess at Britain’s Northern Rock, the most high-profile victim of the credit crisis until Bear Stearns came along.

Understandably, all eyes today have been on the £168m loss the building society made in 2007, before it was nationalised by the UK government. But it is also worth studying the letter below that has just been sent by Mr Sandler to Northern Rock’s customers. I think it is a very well pitched piece of strategic communication that is both direct and admirably clear.

As the Executive Chairman of Northern Rock I’d like to let you know about our plans for the Company whilst under temporary public ownership and what this will mean for you, as a valued customer.

As you may be aware, one of our primary business objectives is to repay the Bank of England loan, as quickly as possible. We aim to achieve this over the next three to four years, through the creation of a smaller, more focused, financially viable mortgage and savings bank, which will ultimately be returned to the private sector.

In doing so, we will continue to focus on the things we do best - running an efficient operation and providing savings and mortgage products to our customers. We will continue to provide a high level of customer service, both through our branch network, which will be retained and through our customer service centres. We will also keep our Savings and Mortgage Pledge, to ensure we treat you fairly and in an open, honest and transparent manner.

Inevitably, some things will have to change whilst we are in the process of repaying the Bank of England loan. In particular, because we need to reduce the size of our business, we will not always be able to offer our mortgage customers a competitive new deal when they come to the end of their existing product term. Customers who do decide to move to a new lender can be sure that we will help them seek an alternative and make it as easy as we can to transfer their mortgage.

We are not offering unsecured loans to new customers, although customers with an existing unsecured loan with us will not be affected in any way.

In most other aspects, however, it will be business as usual. Our brand name is Northern Rock and will remain so. The name carries a great deal of goodwill amongst our customers, most of whom have stayed with us despite the difficulties we have faced. We very much appreciate your loyalty and will try to repay it by continuing to offer you an excellent level of service.

I will update you again, as and when we approach the key milestones in our business plan.

I hope you have found this useful and I have been able to reassure you that we will do our best to continue to look after you.

Thank you again for your loyalty and support.

RON SANDLER

Executive Chairman

March 31st, 2008 in Leadership, Strategy | Permalink