The Sam Malone Leadership Secret (They Want To Go Where Everybody Knows Their Name)

For 15 years I worked for a man named Bill Bresnan.  He was a cable television pioneer and one of the legends in the industry,  having built his first cable system in 1958, and quickly rising to the top in the early 70′s as the CEO of TelePrompter.  He later started his own cable company, Bresnan Communications, in 1984, and continued to operate cable systems both internationally and domestically until his too-early passing in 2009.

Because he was one of my great leadership mentors, I’ll be writing a lot more about Bill in the coming weeks, but today I wanted to touch on one aspect of his inspiring leadership style that always reminded me of Sam Malone.

Yes, that Sam Malone  – the character in the TV show Cheers.

Sam and Bill shared a leadership secret that they happily passed on to anyone they knew.

And that was, the simple act of knowing someone’s name.   And, for good measure, a few other facts about that person.

That’s what attracted such a familiar crowd in a bar like Cheers – it was just like the theme song said – the patrons wanted to go “where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came”.

It takes an effort to be good with names and details, and it’s an effort that is often not seen with a CEO of a company with nearly 1,200 employees.  But I saw Bill Bresnan make that effort, and what a magical thing it was.

He could walk into a room with 50 people, introduce himself to every one of them, hear their names, and perhaps also the names of their spouses, or their children, or their dogs, and even months (or years later),  encounter them again, and remember those names, and yes, those other details too.

I fondly remember several instances where he would travel to see some of the customer-facing employees in the field, after not being there for over a year, and totally delight them by calling them out by name, AND asking about their spouses, or kids, or dogs, by name as well.

I can’t tell you how much of a positive effect that had.   Several times I would stay behind after Bill left a particular office, and the “buzz” about his knowing the names would go on for days.

Of course, there was something very special behind the “remembering”.  It was called caring. He WANTED to know everyone’s name.  He WANTED to know about the lives of his teammates, no matter their job or standing in the company.  He just liked people, period.

That’s leadership everybody could get behind.  And we did.  Because we knew if he cared that much to know our names, it would carry over into all aspects of his leadership, and how the company was managed.   And he delivered on that promise.

Which brings us back to Sam Malone.   I always wondered what Sam had in common with those folks in the Cheers bar, like Frasier Crane, or Cliff Clavin, or “Woody” Boyd.  I watched that show back in the 80′s because it was funny and entertaining, and until I worked for Bill  in the 90′s I didn’t really “get” the commonality of those eccentric characters.

It was one of those “duh” moments for me.  What they had in common was they all wanted to go to a place where everybody knew their name, and the feeling of acceptance and community that went with it.

I realized, with Bill, I was in the workplace equivalent of the Cheers bar, and if I wanted to be a good leader, that I should also display the same kind of caring that could build that kind of community.

That lesson has stayed with me since then, and I’ve always made it a great priority to learn names and details. It wasn’t easy, because at one point I had 1,100 teammates under my direction, but it was well worth it.  For my teammates, AND me.

Because it turns out,  I wanted the same thing they wanted.   Acceptance and community.

Thank you Bill, and cheers to you Sam.