Bloomberg's Salary

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Mike Bloomberg once offered to tell me how much money he made. It went down like this:

I was at his desk finishing a short meeting about news features on the terminal.

Mike’s executive assistant interrupted to say his W2 had come in the mail. A W2 is a form U.S. companies prepare for employees that lists their compensation and taxes withheld.

Mike took it and gave it a glance.

“Do you want to see my W2?” he asked me.

“Sure,” I said, a bit unsure if that was the right answer.

This was in 2014. Mike had just returned to the company after 12 years as Mayor of New York. I was Global Head of News Product and would meet with him periodically to explain functions.

Mike handed me the document.

It listed his annual compensation for his final year as mayor: $1.

Mike, not needing the money, had famously agreed to accept a token payment.

He watched my reaction to make sure I knew it was meant to be funny.

It was.

I didn’t see that joke coming, of course, but the maneuver was familiar.

It was how Mike often ended small or casual meetings.

There was an established cadence. He would call you to his desk when he had a question. You’d arrive, and with scant introduction, he’d jump right into the issue.

There would be a quick discussion and decision. It could take as little as five minutes.

Wrapping it up, he would shift gears and make a joke or tell a short story. Often it would involve someone famous or somewhere he traveled. He would open the cloak and invite you into the world of the billionaire boss.

The stories would: “I was golfing this weekend…” or “My Spanish isn’t getting any better…”

Once, after he had just returned from the annual meeting of tech titans in Sun Valley, he made fun of one of the CEOs for elbowing his way in line to get some swag, a cheap plastic radio.

It took a while to notice the pattern, but it was consistent.

Whether he realized it or not, Mike was ending meetings with an anecdote that left you with a small story to tell the team back at their desks.

It’s a management tactic I call “touching the cloak” and I’m amazed more leaders don’t do it.

It works at any level.

People want to connect with their bosses. But in most cases, it’s the leaders who have to extend themselves to share an experience.

Brene Brown would call this “being vulnerable,” though I find that term misleading because it suggests you have to share something deeply personal.

I don’t think that’s true. It just needs to be something authentic. A story you would tell that makes people feel like they aren’t just a cog in the wheel.

Mike made it feel natural and it only took a minute. It wasn’t a big disruption. It wasn’t weirdly personal. It was often funny and always memorable.

(Part of a series of lessons I learned from three decades at Bloomberg LP.)

BRIEF OBSERVATIONS

BELIEVE IN WHAT YOU DO: Love this explanation in Phil Knight’s biography of why its easier to sell sneakers than encyclopedias: it’s something you believe in.

THE WAR NEVER ENDS: Loved this historical snippet.

THE WAR NEVER ENDS PART 2: Instantly classic description of a relationship gone bad.

DON’T BRING YOUR PET LLAMA: It’s been told before, but the story of Michael Jackson and Freddie Mercury’s collaboration never gets old.

BOOK STORE: There’s a guy who sells books on the corner of 73rd and Broadway. Each night he wraps the books and each morning unwraps it. If you walk by after-hours you wouldn’t even know.