Pitsmoor’s George Buckley

Story: Fran Belbin

Sir George Buckley retired this year as Chairman, President and Chief Executive of American company 3M, who manufacture a wide range of products, but perhaps most famously Scotch Tape and Post-it notes.

George was the only British CEO of a Fortune 500 (the top 500 U.S. public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue) company – and he was born and brought up in Pitsmoor. The Messenger caught up with him at the annual Sheffield Management Lecture.

What are your recollections of Pitsmoor?

I was born in 1947 in my grandmother's house at 78 Macro Street, a road that ran between Pitsmoor Road and Woodside Lane parallel to the Manchester railway line. My grandmother had certain rules, for example you should never buy anything on hire purchase and if you can stand you can go to work. She was poor. My grandfather had died and she was crippled, so she turned her house into a rooming house. I lived there with my mother and father but they split up when I was four months old. I was given to one of these itinerant lodging families and they raised me until I was 11.

Then my mother wanted me back, which was pretty traumatic. I went to a school for physically handicapped children and caught a couple of buses to get to school. There'd been a lot of bombing in the area so we played on bomb sites, digging through the rubble. A bit later I remember I had one pair of shoes that had cardboard in till I could afford some more. I was actually beaten and raped as a child, so it was a very tough upbringing. But it was hard for everybody – family members had been killed, nobody had any money, there was nothing to go round, neighbours helped out.

And you left school with no qualifications?

I was 15 and I got a job as an apprentice electrician for NG Baileys. I had an epiphany one day when an electrician said to me, “George, do you realise why we're putting in heavier cables for the power and lighting? Let me show you how to calculate the power.” There was a chalkboard, and I was completely lost, so the following day I asked for day release. I went to Granville College for five years, never missed a class.

Where did that motivation come from?

Some of it was initially fear, some of it was shame. I had an inferiority complex. I was concerned that unless I worked very hard I'd never be able to overcome it. And I had a dream of being an engineer from many many years before, when a lady came into my grandmother's kitchen – “What are you going to be when you grow up young man?” Of course I wouldn't dare answer in front of my grandmother, and she said, “He's going to be an electrical engineer.” I've no idea where she got it from! She'd only had electricity in her house five or six years, but she obviously knew it was something of the future, a good thing to do.

You've retired from 3M but you've taken on more work?

If you're lucky like I was, there's enormous fulfillment comes from working. The people you work with, the friends you make, that become a kind of extended family. So I don't think I would ever want to give up work fully. I love fishing, but if I did it every day it would be like going to work every day. So I look for balance, what I call the “baby bear” solution, not too hot, not too cold, not too sweet, not too salty…

Any advice to share from your working life?

For young people, it's a combination of education and hard work. And a great rule of leadership is to stretch people, allow them to see where their real potential lies. I suspect there are a lot more creative juices in people than they imagine.

(A fuller version of the George Buckley interview appears in October 2013 News)