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Technology requires the kind of crisp management typical of Jersey Standard. In his 29th floor board room, under a stern portrait of old John D. Rockefeller himself, Mike Haider supervises an empire that John D. would have envied. Though Jersey is huge enough and diffused enough to seem unrulable, the empire functions routinely and well under a system of committees and responsibilities. Jersey has so many committee meetings at so many levels that some outsiders dub it "the Standard Meeting Company." Minutes of the meetings filter upward to key men whom the company calls contact directors—vice presidents whose job is to maintain watch over various regions of the world. Contact directors report day-to-day developments to Jersey President John K. Jamieson, 57. Larger issues and long-range planning are the business of Haider, a summertime yachtsman (power boats, of course), who believes in keeping an easy hand on his corporate helm. "If I ask a question," says Haider, "I'd rather the contact director said, 'I don't know but I'll find out.' If he knows, he's following the situation too closely."
Away from Home. Haider's penchant for decentralization and his determination to equip Jersey for the next 20 years of globalization have radically reshaped the company. One decision, reversing a tradition that dated back to John D., was to add outsiders to Jersey's board of directors. "Their unfamiliarity with the oil business can be useful," says Haider of his decision, "just because they will ask a question to which we think we've known the answer a long time."
More significant, however, was Haider's idea of improving the dialogue between the 29th floor and the 300 affiliates with a series of completely new management companies laced between the two. Set up last year, they include Esso Africa, which oversees Jersey business in Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean from its base in Geneva. Esso Inter-America, set up in Coral Gables, Fla., now handles most of Jersey's investment in South American oil. Esso Standard Eastern, based in New York for better communications, overlooks Australia and the Far East. For Europe and its 17 nations in which Jersey operates, Haider conceived Esso Europe and based it in London.
The reason for Haider's interest in Europe is obvious, since Jersey Standard sells as much gas and oil and chemicals there as it does in the U.S.
More than that, Jersey's European business is growing faster than its U.S. business. The trend holds for other U.S. corporations, too. Colgate-Palmolive, H. J. Heinz, Woolworth, Singer and NCR (National Cash Register) do more business overseas than at home. Such companies use a simple marketing technique abroad: they keep a low corporate silhouette and a high product image. It works so well that many a foreign customer never thinks about them as American. "Oooh," said a British housewife recently, sighting a Woolworth five and ten on her first visit to New York. "I see you have our Woolworth here too."