Jeff Benjamin; photo by Lauren Benjamin
What are the principles of great leadership and practices of strong leaders? How do we apply that knowledge? And why is it important to embrace serendipity?
Jeff Benjamin, a highly respected former General Counsel and Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer for Ciba-Geigy Corporation (now Novartis Corporation) and Avon, Inc., has more than forty years of corporate leadership experience and has gained considerable insight, wisdom, and practical advice from it.
In his new book, “Embracing Serendipity: A General Counsel’s Perspective on Leadership,” Jeff considers leadership ideas from experts he admires, pairs them with his decades of experience and his own ideas, and distills them into a new book that provides guidance for leaders and those aspiring to be leaders in any walk of life.
Jeff believes it’s essential to have a shared vision for an organization’s culture and objectives; effective collaboration; and a motivating environment. He also lays out guiding principles that he believes should be a leader’s North Star, including loyalty to an organization; acting with absolute integrity including courage and candor; recognizing the difference between facts, experiences, and stories; and assuming, at all times, that you’re being audio- and videotaped.
Central to the book is the idea of embracing serendipity. “There’s been a great deal of serendipity in my life. Things have happened incrementally, which contributed to my development and offered different opportunities, some of which I never expected. I believe that’s pretty typical of what we all face,” Jeff noted. The book is full of examples that help to illuminate his ideas.
For example, he describes an unexpected “nightmare scenario” in the book that occurred 22 years after he began working at Ciba-Geigy Corporation, which he says was a “wonderful company.” At about 6:00 a.m. on March 7, 1996, he received a telephone call from a colleague advising him that his company planned to merge with Sandoz and to divest a significant portion of its business before that merger was consummated. Ciba-Geigy was centralized and Jeff was serving as the leader of its legal department in the United States. Sandoz was decentralized and was believed, at the time, to be far less quality-oriented. Some news articles predicted that thousands of jobs would be eliminated.
Jeff writes that “the legal department I so loved was going to be dissipated.” Fortunately, the fears that deeply affected Jeff and his legal team would not have an intractable impact on their lives. Some positive experiences arose that likely would not have happened otherwise. They include Jeff becoming the General Counsel of Ciba-Geigy Corporation, which enabled him, among other things, to represent the company before the FTC in securing clearance for the merger. Jeff also describes the out-of-the-blue opportunity he was given, almost seven months after retiring at age 66, to become General Counsel and Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer at Avon, where he spent nearly five extraordinary years.
Full of wise thinking and important ideas, “Embracing Serendipity: A General Counsel’s Perspective on Leadership” offers many insights for anyone who’s in, or seeks to be in, a leadership position.
You can learn more about the book and, if you wish, purchase it at Big Red Books in Nyack on November 18 at 6:00 p.m. At the event, Jeff will be interviewed by his son, Ross Benjamin, a renowned German-language literature translator. The event is free, but please RSVP here. You can also purchase the book here.
Full disclosure: Jeff is a member of the Nyack News & Views Board of Directors.
