Dan Glaser is not your conventional CEO. He likes to stir things up and to get people to break out from conventional ways. He’s the CEO of Marsh & McLennan, the global consulting firm, which Glaser says is in the “brains business”. That means coming up with creative solutions for the firm’s clients.
How does he get results? Glaser tells Fortune, he lives by this motto: “there is no innovation without dissent”. Every one of Marsh & McLennan’s 60,000 employees has heard Glaser talk about this many times. “I’m happy with conflict. I want cognitive conflict”, he explains, adding that he does not want an environment where people feel intimidated. “I want an environment where the best idea wins and it doesn’t matter who comes up with the idea.”
Marsh and McLennan, with revenues of more than $13 billion, is ranked on Fortune’s list of America’s biggest companies. Glaser joined the firm right out of college and was tapped to be chief executive in 2012. He says he got the best leadership advice from his father.
“Always think like an owner,” Glaser says his father told him. “If you make your decisions that way, you’ll probably be okay.”
Watch the video above for more from my conversation with Glaser.