Bill George is the former chairman and CEO of Medtronic and is now a professor of management at Harvard Business School.
How did you begin your career?
I went to engineering school at Georgia Tech. I went to Harvard right after a summer at IBM and graduated from business school at age 23. Then I went into the Department of Defense during the time of the Vietnam War as a civilian for the control of the Defense Department, and then I worked for the Secretary of the Navy. I had the opportunity to interface with a lot of the exceptional people in that era, people like Bob McNamara, Paul Mitz, and IBM’s Cheryl Brown.
What did you do for the Department of Defense?
I was working on major weapon systems like the F111 and the C5 aircraft that were in deep trouble. I became the cost expert. It was not my long-term interest, but it was a lot of fun because it gave me an opportunity to work with the contractors and see what was going on in ship building. It was really a form of a career deferral, something a lot of young people are doing now in postponing their real careers to try to get a broader experience base before they go to work more permanently.
I left Washington in 1969 shortly after the election and went into strategic planning with Linton Industries at the food services group. Linton was going into the consumer microwave oven business. I had a chance to launch that business, put the plan together, and be responsible for the division for eight years. I spent a total of nine and a half years with Linton, mostly in Minneapolis. It was a great experience.
What is the best way to prepare to work as a manager?
Get in the playing field and don't spend too much time in consulting, investment banking, or some deferral mode, unless you want to become a consultant. Get some line management experience really early. I think I was 27 when I became general manager of the Linton Microwave Division. It was a wonderful experience. There is no substitute for managing a series of retail stores, running your own product brand, running a factory, or even running an accounting firm or running a country for a global company. The opportunity to get line management experience early is invaluable. Management experience is how you really learn how to motivate people and not just observe. It's how you learn to be responsible for the implementation and execution of your own strategy and plans, seeing what works and what doesn’t work.
The reality is that today not many people are getting management experience before going to graduate school. If you can get experience I strongly recommend it before you go to graduate school. Or if you are coming out of graduate school, I recommend that you get up in there and get a line management experience. One of the people I’ve been mentoring is going to be running a major nursing home. He is going to have the experience of seeing all the challenges and problems, hiring the people for the nursing home and the difficulties older people have. This is a great opportunity for him to serve. At the same time, he is learning about the challenges of running an institution. Someday he will probably be running a big nursing home company with 150 nursing homes and extended living facilities. But right now he will have the chance to get the hands-on experience.
What I don’t like to see is people that jump into a staff route and never get line management experience. It’s a little like being in the press box observing a sport but never being in the playing field. I would say play in the sport and learn what it's like to get your nose bled.
What does it take to make it to the top of your field?
I was with a group of about a dozen CEOs last night, all new within th | 
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