The Virgin Way

"It all begins and ends with our people."

— Richard Branson

Branson has dyslexia and left school at 16, shortly after founding Student magazine. In 1970 he started selling records by mail, in 1971 he created the Virgin Records label and in 1984 the airline Virgin Atlantic. Under the Virgin brand more than four hundred companies have been born around the world, from telecoms and gyms to Virgin Galactic, with which he himself traveled to space in 2021. In this book he explains how he leads and organizes it around four verbs: listen, learn, laugh and lead. It's not a management manual, but the rules of someone who built his group by doing things differently from the big corporations.

On listening, the lessons are the ones he repeats most:

• Always take notes. Branson carries notebooks everywhere and writes down what employees and customers tell him, his observations and anything that catches his attention.
• Listen to the end. Instead of interrupting, write down your questions and ask them when the other person finishes. It's more respectful and more productive.
• Listening is a leadership skill. Leaders are remembered for their speeches, but Branson holds that listening is a leader's most underrated skill.

On learning and making mistakes, two ideas:

• Hire for character. The interview should test whether the candidate's personality fits the company's culture; skills can be trained, and people with varied experiences bring skills that transfer.
• Don't cry over spilt milk. If something didn't work, shut it down, learn and move on. Branson talks openly about his failures; the best known is Virgin Cola, with which he wanted to take on Coca-Cola and which he himself considers one of the group's biggest mistakes.

On laughing, Branson is serious. A sense of humor and the ability not to take yourself too seriously are traits of a healthy culture, and a successful company can also be a fun place to work. Fun is also brand strategy, because it sets Virgin apart in industries where everyone presents themselves as equally serious, like airlines or financial services.

On leading, the rules are practical:

• Your people first. If employees feel valued, they take care of customers, and customers take care of the business.
• Really delegate. Delegating means handing over responsibility for a situation along with the authority to solve it. Passing on the problem without the power to act isn't delegating; Branson calls it "relegating."
• Take advantage of being the small one. A small company reacts faster and seizes gaps the big ones don't see.

The concept to master is the order of priorities. Branson holds that companies that put their employees and their customers first create more long-term value, and that the way to achieve it is for every person on the team to feel heard and to have real authority to solve things.

How to apply it? Buy a notebook and for five days write down every comment from an employee or a customer without responding in the moment; on Friday pick one and act on it. Then review your calendar and spot the meetings where you talk more than half the time. And choose one part of your job that someone on your team would do better than you, and hand it over this week with the authority to decide.

As a founder it will help you build a culture where people feel heard and have permission to decide. It will also help you if you compete against large, solemn companies: closeness and humor can be part of your brand.