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."