In February 2001 Jim Kilts former CEO nabisco was appointed as a new Chairman and CEO by the

Gillette BoD , he had spent a month assesing the company from outside before aggreeing to take the
job

Day 1
Kilts arrived at Gillette headquarters at Boston on Morning of February 12 and at the same
tima all Gillette employee also received their first letter from him . Within a few hours he held his
first operating commitee staff meeting.
Any attendance thoughts the first meeting would be simply introducing people around the
table were quickly put aside. Kilts launched into a set of overhead slides that outlined his
style,management philosophy and expectations . He stressed that he valued fact-based
management, open communication , simplicity and collaboration .He presented his initial
perspective on Gillette from his month-long external review, including strenghts,weaknesses and key
issues , Kilts also solicited feedback about his analysis from his operating committee.
In this first meeting he laid out a disciplined process for setting and annual quarterly
objectives and providing structure feedback. He announced weekly staff meetings and quarterly 2-
day offsites. And he even expected of his team in the weekly staff meetings like required
attendance, start on time, no gossip ,full attention and active listening. Kilts inform any detail on his
style of leadership.
Kilts made clear he came in with no preconceived notions about people nor had any plans to
make sweeping changes in the management ranks. He did Not for example,intend to bring in his
own team with the exeption of three new corporate staff, his long time associates . But still
everyone would be evaluated and many people see their roles change, people would not be
elimanted unless they did not perform.