Dahlan's simple recipe for success
Dahlan's simple recipe for success
Ainur R. Sophiaan, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya
His day-to-day appearance could be considered eccentric when
compared to the usual attire of executives.
Dahlan Iskan does not carry a mobile phone. He does not have
his own special office to work alone in. He goes everywhere in
sandals or sports shoes and wears T-shirts or casual shirts.
He takes his meals anywhere, from street food stalls to luxury
restaurants. He dislikes formality of any kind.
"I was used to living in poverty when I was a child. I didn't
have shoes until high school. My parents were very poor. Though
prosperous, I am now quite old, so what more could I want?" said
50-year-old Dahlan.
There is a moral message behind the way he leads his
employees.
"I would not like my employees to start buying luxury cars
just because they have big salaries and can start to afford them.
If they did, then I'd better go out and drive a Panther!" he
said, laughing.
"Life is like a stream. We just have to go with the flow. But
I'd prefer mine to flow like a fast current."
Dahlan is today the CEO and president director of Jawa Pos,
with more than 60 dailies, tabloids and magazines. The latest
added to the list is JTV television station, located on the 21st
floor of the Graha Pena building, the center of his kingdom.
Outside the media business, there are also property
businesses, such as hotels and housing estates.
"In the beginning I didn't imagine anything. There were no
obsessions or big plans. I just wanted to work hard, that's all,"
he said.
The village boy from Tegalarum, Magetan, 200 kilometers to the
west of Surabaya, has come a long way through hard work and
perseverance. He was selected as Indonesian Entrepreneur of 2001.
When he was entrusted with the post of chief editor of Jawa
Pos in 1982 after its takeover by Grafiti Pers, Dahlan felt a
kind of challenge amid the pessimism of his colleagues.
"At that time I was wondering whether I could jack up the
circulation to reach one half of Surabaya Post's," he reminisced,
referring to the largest daily at that time.
Fortune smiled on Dahlan several years later. With direct
coverage by his reporters of the fall of Philippine president
Ferdinand Marcos, the circulation of Jawa Pos skyrocketed from
80,000 to 160,000. This achievement created a new spirit and
optimism among his colleagues.
For every new challenge one must come up with new creativity,
he said. From then on he started to build the Jawa Pos Group with
all its subsidiaries in media, property, printing, paper
manufacturing and so forth.
Amid all these activities he is still able to spare time to
add his journalistic touch to some of his newspapers. Every time
he visits the regions, he always sheds some light on "how to get
and write the news" to his reporters.
Dahlan, often called Indonesia's Rupert Murdoch, feels
confident that the newspaper business will not decline amid the
flood of new TV stations and the Internet. He agrees with an
American expert on communications, who said that first class
journalists work at newspapers, second class at television
stations and third class are for the Internet.
Today, in the eyes of businesspeople and journalists in
Surabaya, he is viewed as a pragmatic and entrepreneurial
journalist with a golden touch. His prestigious achievement in
establishing the Jawa Pos emporium has led him to become the
president director of PT Panca Usaha, a holding company with
numerous provincial companies belonging to the East Java
administration.
"For this position I don't receive a salary or the use of
facilities. I often use my own money for various official
purposes," he said.
For him, journalism and entrepreneurship are two mutually
supporting things. From journalism he gets his relentless hard-
working spirit, as well as the ability to build relations. These
traits, he discovered, are also needed by an entrepreneur.
Dahlan acknowledges that he acquired some of the related
skills from his managerial positions at some subsidiary
companies, such as a paper manufacturing plant and a number of
hotels.
However, Dahlan feels that the trust given to him in managing
the government corporation has brought more than a few
advantages.
"At Jawa Pos I can get anything done, without much difficulty.
Whatever I want, I can get it implemented immediately," he said.
"I'm successful at Jawa Pos due to this one-man-show style.
However, when I'm outside I have to check the 'climate'. I have
to ask mysef, can it be done or not? That's a challenge in
itself. Of course, that way I learn a lot. I can control my
emotions better and have got better acquainted with the
bureaucracy from a closer distance. Not every decision gets
implemented as sometimes there are some political factors and so
forth."
He has come up in the world, but Dahlan is unchanged. Some say
he is tight with money.
"I am aware of being regarded as not charitable. I don't want
to squander money for praise or popularity. I could, if I wanted
to, seek favors from government officials or whoever. On the
contrary, such people usually don't treat their staff and
employees well," he explained.
In managing his companies, he always strives to develop a good
relationship with his "internal customers".
"The management thinks about external customers, while I
concentrate on the staff and employees. Many companies occupy
themselves with strategies on expansion, while at the same time
forgetting their employees, who are their essential backbone," he
said.
He often feels that what he has achieved so far is too little.
He says modestly that if something is outstanding or conspicuous,
then it is closely related to a sort of "stupidity".
He may be a one-man-show around the office, but he also knows
the importance of working in a team.
"I'm not a thinker like Goenawan Mohammad or Jacob Oetama,
neither am I a philosopher," he said. That's why I always need a
couple of friends in a team. Maybe because I'm not smart, it's
easier for me to work with others. If I was extremely clever, I
might regard others as stupid. We have reached our position based
on this kind of teamwork."