Different strokes, folks, yet all great in sales

“In the Words of Great Business Leaders”
Julie M. Fenster
John Wiley & Sons Inc. 2000


A biographical book on business leaders usually has a tendency to fit them into some neat theories on leadership, on motivation or even on strategy. The result is discourse on leadership, for instance, with the personages presented as specimens to prove or disprove a theory.

This approach is impaired by one fact: The leaders are viewed as one-dimensional individuals, at best, or merely serve as illustrative lives to reinforce the point of the biographer, at worst.

In either case, the author does not injustice to two parties: one, the featured leader who comes across as a caricature; two, the readers who are misled to believing that great leaders can conveniently fit into a formula, depriving such readers of valuable glimpse of these leaders’ unique humanity.

The featured book at least does not proceed from such infirmity as it gives us glimpses into the unique lives and times of 19 great business leaders of America from the east to the west coasts.

In fact, the issue should have been titled, “In the Lives (not Words) of Great Business Leaders,” because the profiles are more insightful that the quotes.

While some of the “words” of these leaders are quotable, the rest are not. This proves, rather than disproves, the greatness of these leaders. Their “lives” and the millions of loves they touched are deserving of memorable quotations from others.

Their “words” said mostly in board meeting remarks, in off-the-cuff interviews, and in a gathering of employees – do not show the memorable phraseology that results from the deft hand of wordsmiths and speechwriters.

And yet there are some great quotes:
Thomas J. Watson Sr., founder of Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co. before it was renamed International Business Machines, says of “character”: Character should never be confused with reputation. It is not a matter of externals.”

This quote becomes more significant when you read the account of how Watson was fired by hiss boss at National Cash Register because, ironically enough he was “doing great” – and how he was pushed then to put up his own firm.

What about William Wrigley Jr. who popularized Wrigley gums in the 1860s when chewing um was not part of American life? This owner of such brands as “Juicy Fruit” and “Spearmint” has valuable advice to salesmen: “Sticking is one of the big things in salesmanship – one of the biggest. Nearly all buyers say “No!” at first. Real salesmen stick until the buyer has used up his last “No!”

Andrew Carnegie, founder of Bethlehem Steel – who therefore played a key role in building America’s gilded structure, shares his secret of success: “There is very little success where there is little laughter.” To brooding executives, listen!

And Henry Ford II, who took over his grandfather’s losing car manufacturing business, gives us a perspective about profit and profit makers:

“The idea that profit is good is difficult for many people to accept …; Their instincts tell them that one man’s profit is another man’s loss … But experience tells us that in a competitive economy, business profit most from those ventures that best serve the general economic welfare.”

The Ford Motor Co., in time of peace and in time of warm, has been a positive and beneficial presence in the United States, America’s war arsenal that won the war against the Axis powers was provided by the combined resources of Ford and like-minded manufacturers.

How great, by the way, are these leaders? Author Julie M. Fernster reveals: “Their net worth, added together and translated into today’s dollars, is close to $300 billion.”

Fernster is quick to add, though, that the figure is even understated because one named business leader A.P. Giannini, founder of the Bank of America, was never a millionaire. “That was adamantly by choice,” she says,

“A.P. Gianini would not allow his net worth to reach $1 million and gave away about half his fortune every time it neared that figure.”

How to read this book? The author lumped the featured leaders under some five categories, but is quick to clarify this: “I placed the great business leaders in sections according to their strong point. Don’t take the sections too seriously, the mavericks area also great bosses. The self-made successes are hard workers…and all of them were good in sales.”

This is a great executive read at the onset of the year 2001. It starts you off with a glimpse of great leaders whose lives were as eloquent, if not more so, as their words.

Why should you grab this book? Some books have business quotes without the biopics. Other books have biographies without the quotes. This book combines the best of both worlds. And you, dear reader, are all the better for it. Happy reading in the year 2001.

From a would-be dinosaur to a corporate dynamo

“Saving Big Blue”
McGraw-Hill, 1999


The book opens with a ringside view of World Chess Champion Gary Kasparov having a suspenseful match with supercomputer Deep Blue. The antagonists were well into the fourth game of their six-game match.

The world watched while man and machine were dead even-with two victories each and a draw. To all spectators, all they wanted to know was who would be the chess champion of the world.

And yet, Lou Gerstner, IBM CEO for only four years, had something else in mind. He wanted the machine to win, and it is explained by Author Robert Slater thus: “Deep Blue’s victory would shower much attention, all of it positive, on Lou Gerstner and IBM … It would make people forget that a mere four years earlier IBM was at death’s door.”

Deep Blue won, to the chagrin of those who believe in the infinite capacity of the human mind. To Lou Gerstner, it was a powerful message that the world should not now write off IBM – because it was making a comeback with a vengeance.

“Saving Big Blue” the book, is an interesting saga of the new CEO and the company wrested from almost total collapse – who used a combination of uncanny ability to make the right moves and the courage to break away from tradition.

Gerstner joined IBM in 1993, after an earnest and the most talked about executive search in America. He was ushered into the world’s largest computer firm with a reputation: He was a “business turnaround” specialist, and was fortified by an impressive performance as a hotshot CEO of a huge and a highly successful snack food and cigarette firm, RJR Nabisco (of “Barbarians at the Gate” fame).

He also joined IBM board of directors, shocked by IBM’s staggering loss of $4.97 in 1992 – the largest in American corporate history – had no choice but to risk hiring an industry outsider to replace John Akers. The risk (aside from Gerstner’s huge compensation) was well worth it.

Gerstner reversed IBM’s losing streak so that, by 1998, the firm turned up a profit of $6.3 billion. Author Slater summarized Gerstner’s legendary feat in the form of three miracles. Miracle one: Bringing an end to the staggering financial losses IBM was suffering. Miracle two: Reshaping the company into a manageable, efficient entity. Miracle three: Actually turning Big Blue into a profit-making machine once again.

Reading through the new CEO’s strategies, one notes that he was not such a visionary. In fact, Gerstner did not introduce a new vision: he concentrated on strategy execution. In fact, he said: Strategy is execution.” We may not agree with him, but how can me argue against success?

He joined IBM when his predecessor introduced the fashionable policy to break up IBM “the monolith,” a corporation applauded by observers and economic journalists at the time. And yet Gerstner, rightly sensing that the problem was IBM’s misreading of a changing market, stopped the dismemberment of the company.

Instead, Gerstner went into one decisive and lightning-quick downsizing. He replaced the time-honored policy of “employment for life” with a “performance-based” career. And he dared change the culture of “corporate hubris” that blinded its executives to the advent of a rapidly changing marketplace, and loosened up IBM’s staid and proper corporate life (and even IBM’s dress code of starched onmouseover="window.status=' style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href=" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" si="'22&k=" onmouseover="window.status= style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href=" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" si="'22&k=" style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=white%20shirt" onmouseover="window.status= style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=white%20shirt" onmouseover="window.status= style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=white%20shirt" onmouseover="window.status= style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=white%20shirt" onmouseover="window.status=' style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=white%20shirt" onmouseover="window.status=' style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=white%20shirt" onmouseover="window.status=' style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=white%20shirt" onmouseover="window.status=' style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=white%20shirt" onmouseover="window.status=' style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=white%20shirt" onmouseover="window.status=' style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=white%20shirt" onmouseover="window.status=' style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=white%20shirt" onmouseover="window.status=' style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=white%20shirt" onmouseover="window.status='white shirt'; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;"white shirt; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;"white shirt; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;"white shirt; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;"white shirt; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;"white shirt; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;"white shirt; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;"white shirt; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;"white shirt; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;"white shirt; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;"white shirt; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;"white shirt; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;"white shirt; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=white%20shirt"white shirt; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=white%20shirt"white shirt and black shirt).

Subtitled “Leadership Lessons and Turnaround Tactics of IBM’s Lou Gerstner,” the book reads like an MBA change strategy book with a difference. It is a gripping narrative of a strategy that worked – spiced with such lines as: “Splitting up Is Hard to Do” (a case for not breaking up the monolith), “Get Combative” (for an aggressive acquisition strategy), and “It’s the Customer, Stupid!” (for a fiercely customer-driven company).

Gerstner never rests on his laurels. He believes, “When you think you’re done, you’re in trouble.”

Thus, the quintessential CEO introduces a strategy for the future: “We’ve seen great changes in computing before – from centralized mainframes to decentralized PCs to distributed client/server computing. The next phase will be what we call network-centric computing. We will continue to create the advanced products and technologies to make powerful networks real.”

Despite Gerstner’s phenomenal success, the book does not turn a blind eye on his inability to sustain the growth of the firm to make Wall Street happy. But, one thing can be said of this CEO. He has turned a would-be dinosaur, about to collapse but its own weight, into a whirring dynamo. For that alone, there is much to learn from this man’s turn-around strategies.

Fire up your group’s creativity--or get fired

“When Sparks Fly”
By Dorothy Leonard
And Walter Swap
Harvard Business School Press, 1999



We’ve seen the “creative types” – or stereotypes: they are individuals working in bursts of energy, unpredictable, eccentric, flamboyant, spontaneous. Their renowned creativity is veiled in mystery – reputedly born of intuitive impulses or emanating from deep recesses of the subconscious. That is why their creative processes, a common notion says, cannot be subjected to rational analysis.

Author Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap in their book “When Sparks Fly” disagree. In fact, they have identified and shattered some myths about creativity.

First, they say, creativity is not a monopoly of individuals, since groups can be as creative – if not more. Second, creativity is not an unknowable process, because some “science” can lift the shroud of magic and make it manageable.

Third, creativity is not confined to the arts of to high-technology industries, because it is present – and can in fact be tapped – in all other organizations.

Only one thing is required: group creativity must be fired up – or ignited, as the book’s subtitled puts it.

Authors Leonard and Swap, who unmistakably belong to the category of those who believe in the utilitarian function of creativity, defines it as “a process of developing and expressing novel ideas that are likely to be useful.”

So, how can a group generate these “novel ideas”? The book advances a five-step creative process: preparation, innovation opportunity, divergence (generating options), incubation, and convergence (selecting options).

These are actually not new. Other books on creativity have discussed these from philosophical and psychological points of view. And yet, what makes the authors’ approach useful is their use of recent scientific findings, their retelling of familiar and not-so-familiar stories to illustrate a point, and their easy engaging style – that can only come from experience.

On preparation, for example, the authors point out: “Creativity blooms when the mental soil is deep, rich and well prepared.”

And to stress the edge of a creative group process, they say: “Groups have a potential advantage over an individual because multiple reservoirs of deep expertise can be tapped.”

If you have been an avid students of the creative process – from dealing with mental block of writers to trying Edward de Bono’s “Six Thinking Hats” – you will virtually be “talking shop” with the authors.

Fortunately, they keep their side of the conversation very instructive since they are armed with a wealth of information tidbits, scientific findings and insights.

On the other hand, if you are somehow getting your feet wet in the field of igniting creativity, this book is a handy companion, especially its first four chapters, to light up your path to a hitherto unknown territory.

How does one assemble a creative team? The authors introduce the concept of “creative abrasion” which is made possible when one rounds up a healthy mix of people from various disciplines with divergent thinking styles.

How come some executives miss this one important step in stimulating the creative juices of their people?

“Creative abrasion is scary because we prefer those who think like us or those barbarians who have become tame somehow,” the authors say.

This kind of “abrasion: must start with you, the book says, “If you are a shoot-from-the-hip person, you need a cautious, detail orientated person; if you love the proven solution, you need that reckless think-from-the-gut type.”

But why is “abrasion” needed at all? First, one can mix the visionaries with the implementers. One gets several alternatives, and then is assured of moving from idea to action. Second, if precludes “group think,” which limits options to a certain fraternity driven by one mindset or bias.

The book illuminates its advice with a narrative of incidents with added insights thrown in. In a section on the value of “divergence” (narrowing choices of options), the book recounts one disaster that flowed from “premature convergence.”

Remember the space shuttle “Challenger” that exploded in mid-air 14 years ago? Investigations conducted afterwards revealed that decision-makers were under time pressure to firm up their decisions to launch, despite some dire warnings that something could go wrong. The “urge to merge” several options became imperative. Result: disaster.

The book’s discussion on “incubation” – the process of letting go and of allowing the subconscious to take over to sort out several ideas – is enlightening. Case in point is the design of Nissan’s “Pathfinder” (local version is Terrano), which proves the wisdom of “sleeping on it.”

As the story goes, the Nissan vice president took his design crew to a movine, when the crew just could no longer crank out any more new design ideas on a new 4 x 4 Nissan SUV. Well, when the team came back from the movie “Silence of the Lambs,” their creative alternative started flowing. Result: the best-selling Pathfinder was born!

From IBM Research, here’s a tip from its executive: “If you have a choice between planning and prototyping, choose the latter.” The prototype, as preliminary vision of an innovation, can be handled, viewed, experienced.” Don’t miss this section. It might even help you immediately with an idea you are fashioning right now – not in words – but in animation or in a scale model.

Overall, the book shall have done its job if, after reading it, you will have the confidence to expect creativity from your team, and not depend on only one “creative” individual. And this book shall have served its purpose well if you can say: “Merely working harder doesn’t always provide the best solution.”

And, expectedly, you are well on your way to fire up your team to creative heights. The contrary outcome is surely unacceptable: you might get fired.

Great decisions: Luck or Foresight?

The 75 Greatest Management Decisions Ever Made
Stuart Crainer, Amacom, 1999


When is a decision great? Can we spot a brilliant decision when we see one? Can we add several elements in a mathematical formula – and confidently say a great decision has taken place? Or, is a great decision considered such because – after months or years, using the advantage of hindsight – it has resulted in huge success and deep impact?

In the introduction to his book, “The 75 Greatest Management Decisions Ever Made,” author Stuart Crainer says: “It is one of the great disappointments of life that perfect decisions are usually only perfect in retrospect.”

Henry Ford, he adds, did not sprint around Detroit announcing the arrival of mass production. Queen Isabella of Spain did not immediately proclaim her wisdom when she sponsored Columbus’ sail into the distance. She sensibly kept quiet.

There was no sound and fury for potentially great decisions. Decisions-makers would rather keep them under wraps – until such decisions produce positive results. Why? Crainer points out: “Today’s success story is yesterday’s risky decision.”

Quoting Don Sull from the London Business School, the book recalls that the choice of Jack Welch to succeed Reg Jones “was considered a high-risk decision at the time.” Today, Welch is considered the CEO’s CEO, presiding as he does over the world’s most admired corporation, General Electric.

Gary Hamel, co-author of “Competing for the Future,” makes this confession: “We know a great strategy when we see one. In business schools we teach them as specimens. Most of our smart students raise their hands and say, ‘Wait a minute, was that luck or foresight.”

Actually, the book infers that decision-making is both science and art. The “science” part is made up of forecasting, decision tree analysis, cost benefit analysis, mathematical models, and the various uses of probability theory predicting conceivable outcomes. These indeed help.

And yet the “art” comes into play when the “decision moment” arrives – when the CEO, after looking at the numbers, give free rein to his thoughts and usehrs in both white magic and intuition. And, summoning experience from past, using heartbeat of the future – an insight comes in a flash and a course of action emerges in its simplest form.

The list of 75 great decisions seemed to have the combination of art and science, the preponderance of one over the other depended on the decision maker or on the nature of the decision itself.

Sometimes after a lengthy discussion, the husband asks the wife for “her insight.” Walt Disney went home one day and told his wife, Lillian, of a cartoon charater named “Mortimer Mouse.” Well, the wife didn’t like the name and suggested “Mickey” instead. Entertainment was never the same again.

The author gives account of marketing successes which he calls “marketing magic.” In 1915, the Coca-Cola Co. decided to run a competition to design a bottle for its drink. Result: a “shapely” bottle that is now considered one of the best icons of the 20th century.

In 1929, Henry Luce founded Fortune – but his fortune brightened only when he published the Fortune 500. The author’s sensible advice: “Struggling with your marketing? Create a ranking.”

Do you know how the popular “Swatch” watches came about? From the ‘70s to the early ‘80s, the Swiss watch making industry’s market share was reduced to 9 percent. Therefore, leading Swiss manufacturers, sensing a new generation of watch wearers bonded together to develop Swatch, marketing it as a second watch. “Its success among teenagers is a result of good research and development, plus a new “market feel.”

Does ethics have a place in success? In 1982, Johnson & Johnson pulled Tylenol from store shelves'; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=store%20shelves">store shelves, putting customer safety above corporate profit. That was after a psychopath put cyanide into some Tylenol capsules. “Tylenol was about being totally upfront and public,” said J&J’s CEO, even if it meant losing $100 million.

Today, the headache reliever remains one of the best selling over-the-counter drugs.

The book has a lot more great decisions to share, spanning a broad range of industries to suit your interest. He also volunteers “Greatest Lessons,” which are sometimes too obvious and at times marked by insight.

By the way, when you are tired of reading praises for “great decisions,” the author gives a breather with his “Hall of Infamy.” Leading the list when Asa Candler sold the bottling rights for Coca-Cola for $1.Second is Apple’s refusal to license its Mac operating system'; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=operating%20system">operating system to other manufacturers – leaving the field open to Microsoft.

Whether the decisions are listed as famous or infamous, there is much to learn from reading an account of each decision and its impact over the years. Also intrusive is how such decisions changed an era, a lifestyle – and the way we work and play.

There is not much theory advanced to explain the success or failure of an institution or a product as a result of a good of flawed decision – but the book leaves that to you, the reader. It just leaves one central truth: “Truly great decisions just happen.”

Who leads the corporation, the Board Chair or the CEO

“Taking Back the Boardroom”
Philip H. Phan Ph.D.
McGraw-Hill Book Co., 2000


The common notion is that the chairmanship in a corporation’s board is, at best, an honorific title for one who should be rewarded with perks like playing good golf the whole day, and whose only duty is to lend his name to a corporation he served so well.

Thus the board chairman is effectively semi-retired, in contrast to the chief executive officer who is actually running the enterprise.

In family corporations, the gray haired patriarch (or matriarch) is usually the chairman while the greenhorn or earnest son (or daughter) is the CEO.

Where does that place the board of directors – again, in contrast with the CEO’s top management team? Yes, the board members (called “bored” somewhat justifiably and somehow erroneously) simply give their imprimatur, ratifying the “acts of management” – and then conclude the meeting… but only after collecting their modest or hefty directors’ per diem depending on the financial state of the firm.

Is that all there is in the post of chairman and in a body of decision makers called board of directors? Author Philip H. Phan, Ph.D. doesn’t think so. In a research-based book, “Taking Back the Boardroom,” he takes a position uncommon to many: “The Chair wields a great deal of influence and power,” adding that the Chair is very much involved in strategic direction and organizational structure.

Drawing the lines between Chair and CEO’s primary role is to promote growth of the firm, while the Chair’s is to ensure that the firm operates at the highest level of efficiency.”

The Chair advocates the shareholder’s position, while the CEO advocates that of management – and, “in this nexus of healthy tension lies the best solution for maximizing shareholder wealth and maintaining the security of the firm’s future.”

Subtitled Better Directing for New Millennium, this book lives up to its promise, taking a fresh look at the power and resource latent in the Board, led by its visionary Chair. Instead of sounding like a manual (the best formula for boredom, by the way!), the author provides philosophical foundations to enterprise direction, marshalls his points with finely categorized distinctions, and illuminates his premises with stories on business successes or failures attributed to board action or inaction.

It is very rare that an entire book is dedicated to “corporate governance,” a phrase used to distinguish it from “corporate management.” Whether you are a profit or non-profit organization, a public or closed corporation, a family owned company or a global firm’s fully owned subsidiary – you will find something eye opening and insightful in this very meaty book.

Its language is shorn of embellishments, simply because the author wants precision – as he deals with very fine distinctions, complex structures and elaborate processes. Somehow, you feel you are benefiting from the scholarship of the author, giving you a mass of information but making sure you don’t get lost “in the woods,” and pursuing corporate logic but steering clear of such pitfalls as being pedantic or dry.

The book remains interesting because it picks up some controversial points along the way – and nudges us on to join the fray. For example, the book touches on the steady take-over of corporate governance by managers over the owners. It is in the truism that has found circulation among management scientists and students: “The means of control in an organization is not ownership but management.” Surprised? You should not be. Hereabouts, many a management firm, though it owns less than 10 percent of the corporation, completely controls it.

Singapore-based Dr. Phan addresses the issue, too. “The dispersion of ownership led to a condition in which owners of the shares were less able to coordinate themselves in order to monitor the actions of the management. As the ability of owners to check on managerial decisions decreased, the relative power of the managers to control the wealth of the corporation increased, making them the de facto owners.”

After giving you a walk-trough to emergent concepts in governance and management, liberally quoting from his mentors in America, the author fixes his eyes on the Chairman, the great bright (not “white”) hope in restoring “shareholder sovereignty” through an effectively functioning board.

The Chairman has three key responsibilities – one, as a liaison between management and the board; two as one setting the agenda; and three, as “prime instigator” and “mentor” (if not “tormentor”) of the chief executive.

The author initiates a discussion on one interesting point: “Corporate governance experts are not keen on the idea of one individual holding both Chair and CEO positions.” He adds: “As mentor to the CEO, the Chair has to set the performance standards by which the CEO will be judged.” Read the book – and find out if you agree.

From the theory, the author gives you the world’s best practices. The book gives you a chance to peer into the boardrooms of Heinz, Campbell Soup, General Electric, and Coca-Cola – as led by their boards or their chairmen.

For a change, theoretical discussions shift to presenting the chairmen in flesh and blood – Jack Welch initiation earthshaking changes in General Electric and Roberto Goizueta taking over t he helm in Coca-Cola making “the southern soda maker a global marketing powerhouse.” You will also find useful the comprehensive table that presents the two contrasting board policies and processes of Intel and General Motors.

This book comes at a time when we have deluge of management books dealing with theories, strategies, and motivational tools. This one brings you to the boardroom, gives you a window into the mind of an effective Chairman, and lets you feel the tensions and challenges that confronts the boards as they retake the leadership they have relinquished – wittingly or unwittingly – to management.

The partnership between board and management was usually one-sided before. This book, with astonishing insights brought about by outstanding scholarship, will at last equalize the partnership. Get this book – and let us all look forward to dazzling discussions and more fireworks in boardrooms.

Instead of Preparing Oratorical Speeches, politicians prefer 'bites'

“The Penguin Book of Twentieth Century Speeches”
Edited by Brian MacArthur, Revised Edition, 1999


The latter half of the 20th century was marked by the advances of mass communications, thanks to ever modernizing satellite facilities and the fire of the entrepreneurial energy of media moguls. No wonder, mass media have deeply altered the way we work, create, play – or pray. Broadcast media, particularly, have exerted profound influence on a well-loved art and passion: oratory. Some say, media’s pervasiveness – or invasiveness – is good. Others say it’s bad.

Peggy Noonan, speech writer of former American President Ronald Reagan, said that media are responsible for oratory’s decline: “The irony of modern speeches is that, as our ability to disseminate them has exploded, their quality has declined.” Instead of concentrating on coherent speech, Ms. Noonan said, speakers pepper their talk with sound bites demanded by television.

But, Brian MacArthur, in the introduction of his anthology – Penguin Book of Twentieth Century Speeches -- said: “Orators have adapted to television, and television has magnified the power of oratory…Speeches can now be broadcast live round the world, as on such memorable occasions as John F. Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis, Nelson Mandela on leaving jail after twenty-seven years, or Earl Spencer delivering his philippic over the catafalque of his sister Diana, Princess of Wales, that probably had the largest audience in history.”

The book, which covers the entire sweep of about 160 memorable speeches in the 20th century, gives us readers a double treat: First, each selected speech transports us to the mood of an era, listening to words that moved crowds to action or to tears; second, background information by the author gives us insight into the increasing role and power of radio and television'; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=radio%20and%20television">radio and television in amplifying the reach and impact of the speech.

At the dawn of the 20th century, public speaking was limited by time and space. Imagine Theodore Roosevelt preaching the doctrine of “the strenuous life” in 1899 from an elevated stage to a modestly big crowd. Or, Emmeline Pankhurst, the British forerunner of the women’s movement campaigning -- at times on a stretcher -- to give the distaff side the right to vote in 1908 to a disbelieving crowd.

The forties came – announced by the distant drums of war. Radio in its primitive form became handy to the “giants” of the war years. Winston Churchill used radio with his droning voice to tell British air fighters that this was their “finest hour” – and so fortified the will of England against the unforgiving attacks of the Nazis. Franklin D. Roosevelt broadcast his “fireside chats” about the increasing role of America in the war against the Axis powers – one of which was his “arsenal for democracy” speech. And then, their chief antagonist, the unlamented Adolf Hitler, was issuing dire warnings, saying his “patience is now at an end” to a crowd seduced by a romanticized view of war.

Peace returned in the fifties, and the world was ready to savor peacetime preoccupations like recognizing outstanding works of literature – or hatching a Marxist revolution. In 1950, the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to novelist William Faulkner in 1950, whose acceptance speech has become a fine rhetorical specimen for astonishing insight into the uniqueness of man. These lines from Faulkner still ring true today: “I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail.”

In 1953, a Cuban lawyer, Fidel Castro, prepared a speech from his prison cell, declaring before his accusers: “When men carry the same ideals in their hearts, nothing can isolate them – neither prison walls nor the sod of cemeteries.” The rest is history for Cuba, where rebel became ruler of the most durable Marxist government of our time.

The turbulent sixties came, and with them outstanding personalities like John F. Kennedy, whose inaugural address in 1961 had gone down in history as one of the best in all the world for its syntax, cadence and other rhetorical tools. The book tells us that one tool used by his speech writer, Theodore Sorensen, was “contrapuntalism,” as in “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.” Television and radio broadcast this rhetorical classic around the world. A new generation for media-driven speeches has begun.

The elegance of Kennedy was matched by the passion of Martin Luther King in his famous speech, “I Have a Dream,” delivered at the Washington Monument in Washington D.C. in August 1963 before a crowd of 210,000 civil rights marchers and advocates. The Reverend King spoke for millions of Negro slaves “who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice,” proving the power of Biblical rhythm and metaphor, leading MacArthur to say of King: “He has made a mastery of the spoken word the servant of his cause.”

Thanks to communication technology, the pieces of Kennedy and King are now immortalized in videotapes. Note that three months after King delivered his speech, Kennedy was felled by an assassin’s bullet in Dallas, Texas, in November 1963 -- thrusting Lyndon B. Johnson into the limelight to fit the Presidential shoes and to deliver an inaugural speech written in only one week. He began with these pained lines: “All I have I would have given gladly not to be standing here today.”

Starting a war, defending the peace, pushing women’s rights – saying hello to a leadership role and bidding goodbye – these are the stuff of the speeches of the last century. Speaking of goodbyes, this book has printed for us the tearful farewell speech before the White House staff of Richard Nixon, who resigned as President of the United States. Nixon said: “Greatness comes, and you are really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes, because only if you have been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.”

With that speech, history looks more kindly now at Mr. Nixon -- inspite of Watergate. Indeed, seeing the entire vista of human history and realizing that life is short can imbue a leader with a certain wisdom that transcends things ephemeral. It is wishful thinking, but another President, embroiled in something that sounds like “Juetengate,” must opt for a gentler judgment by history.

Words of Eloquence for that decisive Speech

“Historic Speeches”
Edited by Brian MacArthur
Penguin Books


A book on speeches is not only for political leaders and their speechwriters – because that would limit interest in the art of eloquence to a very limited few. An anthology of classics in public speaking should also be available to top and rising business and organizational leaders. Wherever one needs to persuade people to head in one direction or to bring them to a decisive moment, one needs a good speech.

This book, “The Penguin Book of Historic Speeches,” caught my fancy in Sydney a month ago and – with it – my last twenty Australian dollars. Like some of you, I have been collecting books on speeches, realizing that it is the best way to be transported into the eras that we only learn about in history books. And , invariably, we come away convinced that history, indeed, is human history. And history is made, not only by men of action but men of thought and eloquence. In fact, the latter endure even more. From Ancient Greece, for example, we remember Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Demosthenes. Of warriors, the most famous is only Alexander the Great of Macedonia. The rest belong to Greek mythology, not history.

In the book’s introduction, the author highlights the power of words: “When Demosthenes spoke, he roused the Athenians to march on Philip of Macedonia. When Cicero spoke, even Caesar trembled – and only when Demosthenes and Cicero were silenced did despotism triumph in Greece and Rome. When Queen Elizabeth I spoke, men bowed at her knees. Yet when John Pym raised the ‘cry of England,’ a king lost his head. When James Otis and Andrew Hamilton and John Hancock defied the British colonialists, they raised the flag of American independence.”

This book has managed to offer the reader a total of 162 speeches, mostly great portions from overly long speeches and full reprints for notably short pieces.

You can begin with “The Ancient Times,” featuring Grecian and Roman orators, Moses, Jesus of Nazareth and Muhammad. One realizes that, shorn of any religious significance, Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” truly stands out with its simplicity, depth and distilled purity. Well, divinity, as we know, has something to do it. While the rest of the speeches have remained the handiwork of humans, albeit often showing Divine spark.

The reader can move on to the speeches of “Commoners and Kings,” harking back to the times when royalty held sway and, subsequently, when commoners gradually took power. Interesting is the speech of Queen Elizabeth, titled “To Be a King,” before a genuflecting throng. Instructive is the eloquent denunciation of John Pym, when he accused the Earl of Strafford of treason and other crimes. Pym’s line, “He should perish by the justice of the law which he would have subverted,” resulted in the beheading of Strafford before a crowd of 200,000. Read the speech and reflect: Do you think this line should have been applied to those who subverted our laws?

You move on to the chapter on “Birth of the United States,” featuring famous Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty, or give me death,” and the not-so-famous, “I agree to this Constitution with all its faults” by Benjamin Franklin. History was being shaped. While Americans roused their compatriots on American soil, far-seeing English parliamentarians in Great Britain, like Edmund Burke, spoke of the path of peace and of giving Americans a voice in the English parliament. Shades of the earlier efforts of our leaders seeking Filipino representation in the Spanish Cortes! As history would have it, Burke’s resolution was defeated – leading to inevitable war. The hawks outnumbered the doves. History repeats itself – many times.

A chapter, “The Age of Lincoln,” naturally features Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, now a classic and required memory work in many public speaking classrooms. The editor illuminates that historic moment when mild-mannered Lincoln spoke after a powerful and florid two-hour oration of the celebrated orator of the time Edward Everett.

Here is his account: “Everett’s florid speech is forgotten. Lincoln spoke 270 words in about three minutes, interrupted by applause five times, and made the greatest and noblest speech of modern times, a speech that stands comparison with the Sermon on the Mount or the funeral oration of Pericles.” And, contrary to a common notion, Lincoln’s address “was certainly not written on the back of the envelope,” but drafted and re-drafted right up to the morning of the event.

The book’s final two chapters were, first, devoted to “Women’ Liberation,” revealing to us that it is not the sole domain of Betty Friedan but a distinguished company of courageous women in history.

The onmouseover="window.status=' style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href=" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" si="'22&k=" onmouseover="window.status=' style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href=" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" si="'22&k=" style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=book%20ends" onmouseover="window.status= style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=book%20ends" onmouseover="window.status='book ends'; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;">book ends'; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;">book ends'; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=book%20ends">book ends'; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=book%20ends"book ends with “A Century of War and Revolution,” giving us Lenin who, it turned out, gave his incendiary speeches in installments, interrupted by roars of approval – and which forever changed Russian political life. And then you have ample time to listen to Winston Churchill, John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Vaclav Havel and Nelson Mandela. (These men of eloquence will be a subject of another book review – Brian MacArthur’s companion anthology: “The Penguin Book of Twentieth Century Speeches”.)

From ancient history to recent ones, from the past to the evolving present, speeches will be delivered by political leaders. Executives in business organizations should, too – and should even learn a lesson or two from the tools of rhetoric effectively used by political leaders through centuries. Nothing much has changed. Followers are moved by thoughtfully, carefully and effectively delivered speeches – anywhere. It is hoped that, with this anthology, business executives will realize they should craft a speech beyond the jargon of business or the workaday tone of office memoranda.

Voices of Wit, War and Wisdom in the century we lived in

"The Oxford Dictionary of 20th Century Quotation"
Edited by Elizabeth Knowles
Oxford University Press


We have just begun living in the 21st century, and we have not quite left behind the last 100 years. And, as we move farther away from the last century, we will be more and more fascinated by its uniqueness. So, whenever you see a book that puts in one volume the thoughts, speeches, essays, poems and songs of the 20th century, buy it.
I usually do.

When we had not yet crossed the great divide between the 20th century and the 21st, it was different. Anything could be added still to a period that had not ended. But when the 20th century truly came to a close, we – in a manner of speaking – have crossed a vast river and, from the other side, we now see -- with conscious detachment -- the completed 100 years like a different world all its own.

We are moved by songs and jolted by bursts of gunfire; we laugh at human foibles and rue costly errors; we are amused by petty quarrels and irritated by baseless anxieties; we are amazed by the changed lifestyles, thanks to technologies which run at the speed of light – and, yes, we are invariably touched by whirlwind loves won and carefully nurtured loves lost. At any rate, since we have the necessary detachment, we see and learn more.

The same can be said of having in one’s hands “The Oxford Dictionary of 20th Century Quotations,” which can truly be said to reflect the century that has brought about historic speeches, excerpts from novels, poetic lines, prayers, screenplay lines, news dispatches, poignant farewells from the gallows and all-too-candid interviews.

There are quoted words so powerful they dethroned a king or demolished a kingdom. You get excerpts from orations that moved troops in a frenzy for war and radio broadcasts that inspired troops to march with determined strides to end such a war. Words that awakened the hearts of blacks fighting for equality, and ringing lines like Ich bin ein Berliner before a roaring audience that might have helped bring down the Berlin wall and other walls in the Iron Curtain.

You get quotes from people you love -- like Winston Churchill and Marilyn Monroe, and those you love to hate like Adolf Hitler and Stalin.

And truly reflecting the 20th century, the book has special sections on advertising slogans -- like this 1936 ad, “Don’t be vague, ask for Haig”; or that 1917 ad line for Palmolive soap that is now part of our language: “Keep that schoolgirl complexion.” The book also features such catch phrases as “The butler did it!” dated at 1916, but actually cannot be traced, and “Keep on truckin’,” used by Robert Crumb in 1972 cartoons. Yes, epitaphs were also fashionable in the last century, written by friends or pre-written by the would-be dead: “Here lies Groucho Marx – and lies and lies and lies. P.S. He never kissed an ugly girl.” This was Groucho’s own suggestion for his epitaph. What about these moving words on the centotaph at Hiroshima, Japan: “Rest in peace. The mistake shall not be repeated.”

You’ll have some famous film lines which you can now knowledgeably trace to their origins like this one from “Gone with the Wind, spoken by Clark Gable: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn!” alongside this one tenderly said by Humphrey Bogart to Ingrid Bergman, “Here’s looking at you, kid.”

Some newspaper headlines have also joined the quotable quotes hall of fame – like this embarrassing banner headline in Chicago Tribune which anticipated the result of a U.S. Presidential election: “Dewey Defeats Truman.” Remember some fearless forecasts in our own national elections? On road advice, we have this sign that is traced to 1912 yet: “Stop-look-listen.” Today, this sign can apply to top decision-making in the country. Will somebody up there stop, look and listen? Maybe, he should wake up first!

And finally, the book gives us some words that have actually been “Misquotations.” Do you know that the line “Me Tarzan, you Jane,” supposedly in a Johnny Weissmuller movie, is actually neither in the film nor in the original work by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author? Well, no matter. In our case, especially in a chaperoned date, it is usually a “Me Tarzan, you Jane, she Cheetah” situation!

This book has 482 pages of quotes and more quotes. It has a key word index running through 129 pages to give you just the right quote to spice up a speech or to punctuate a toast. There is also a thematic index in case you have a writer’s block and you need just a little push to recharge your mental batteries.

A copy of a book of thoughtfully selected quotations is always a treasure. A book that captures the heartbeat of a century just concluded is both treasure chest'; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=treasure%20chest">treasure chest and mirror.
Altogether, the quotes show us part of a lifetime we participated in. We have heard some of these quotes. In fact, we heard ourselves uttering them. The difference is the quoted people in this anthology said it better.

If you were ever part of the 20th century, get this book. You will be listening to yourself.

Lawyers (and Our) Ethical Dilemma

“The Moral Compass of the American Lawyer”
Richard Zitrin & Carol Langford, 1999


This book proves once again that “truth is stranger than fiction.” You begin with
the first chapter and, before you know it, you are transported to a murder scene, listen to a
cover-up, hear lawyers zealously defend the murderer -- and know that, once again, truth
is victim in the name of “justice” -- at the altar of an intricate legal system in America
that only manages to defeat the ends of justice that it professes to uphold.
“The Moral Compass of the American Lawyer” is a book written by two legal
scholars who are concerned with the ethical moorings (or lack of them) of the
profession. They declare that, many times, the profession which is devoted to upholding
justice ends up frustrating it. In a well-documented litany of cases, told occasionally in a
breathtaking narrative, various scenes and actors are described to illustrate the moral
dilemma well-meaning lawyers face day after day.
The book’s jacket asserts that this piece of work is for lawyers and law students concerned with the code of ethics that govern them. When I told a friend that I am reviewing the “moral compass” of lawyers, he retorted with a rhetorical question: “Do they have any?” Questions like this could have driven the two authors to reexamine the premises and principles by which a lawyer’s conduct is governed, a trial court’s procedure is based and an entire jurisprudence has evolved.
Thus, after reading this eye-opening account, I am convinced that non-lawyers need this book more than lawyers do. Non-lawyers, after all, should understand the law profession because, whether we like it or not; whether we can peer through the mystery or not; and whether we like it or not – we shall be needing a lawyer sooner or later.
The authors declare: “There is a palpable tension between the rules of legal ethics and other important principles of our society: telling the truth, being fair and compassionate, seeking justice, being courageous, acting as a normal human being.”
From such statement, the book proceeds to give an account of cases – some of which are familiar to us in this side of the globe, like the O. J. Simpson murder trial – to illustrate the fact that lawyers conceal (or are forced to) the truth to uphold a principle that they should “zealously defend their client” even if, in their heart of heart, know already that he is guilty.
The book covers'; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=book%20covers">book covers almost every trick and stratagem of lawyers – not so much to expose such tactics but more so to examine them and discover if there is a way out of techniques that “assault our ordinary sense of justice and fair play.” From preventing lawyers to disclose vital information to inventing a lie; from unwanted ambulance chasers to lawyers who shamelessly merchandise their services; from barristers who transform the courthouse into an actor’s stage to cloak-and-dagger types tampering with evidence in the shadows – this book is giving us case upon case of real people, victims and criminals, heroes and villains. And lawyers have been portrayed in these many roles separately or simultaneously. It is “L.A. Law,” “Perry Mason,” and “The Practice” altogether – even throwing in the suspense-filled narrative of a John Grisham book.
The format also makes it a readable work.. Every account introduces one ethical dilemma, followed by a review of views by respected jurists or codes of conduct of a legal association – and then capped by an “epilogue” that brings back the reader to the story with its denouement – which assumes either a surprising twist or a predictable outcome. In any case, one strong point is delivered: the ethical system of the profession needs a top-to-bottom overhaul.
The book discusses principles and procedures within the American context, and some may not apply to the Philippine situation. And yet, since our own legal profession follows the American model somewhat – excepting the jury system – this book may yet open our eyes to the same ethical dilemmas presented in disturbing clarity by the authors.
The law still governs our lives. One lawyer-friend gives me a Latin maxim: “Dura lex sed lex” -- meaning, “the law no matter how hard is the law.” First, we have to know how this law is applied. After all, what we do not know can hurt us. And then, if we know, we can move one step ahead and demand that the law must indeed serve the ends of justice.

Top CEOs, wannabes and headhunters

“Lessons from the Top”
Thomas J. Neff & James M. Citrin
Currency Doubleday, 1999



Not even Fortune, The Economist and Inc. could have featured and analyzed in one volume the eventful careers of the 50 “best business leaders” in America, and corporate performance – in financial and marketing terms – of the enterprises they run. And yet, in this one book, aptly titled “Lessons from the Top,” the tandem of Thomas J. Neff and James M. Citrin came up with a tour de force giving us in only over 400 pages the brains and engines of industry that run America.

There’s more. More than giving us intimate corporate profiles, the authors called upon the disciplines of research (using the Gallup Organization) to conduct an ambitious survey among 575 businesspeople and leaders to nominate the most outstanding leaders. And then, they have asked a leading investment management firm, Lazard Asset Management, to analyze the market and financial performance of companies headed by these leaders.

The book has proven convincingly that it is possible to combine warmth in profile writing, cold financial analysis, in-depth discernment of a trained headhunter, and the vast sweep of understanding the logic business – and thus came up with an instructive and inspiring book.

“We undertook to do what no one else has done before,” the authors say. “We put together a rigorous methodology aimed at identifying the very best business leaders in America, and then interviewed those leaders at length to discover why they have been so successful."

The major content of the book is the 50 sets of profiles of the famous and the not-so-famous business leaders who came up with outstanding performance in 1998. The list is led by Jack Welch who brought in US$99.8 billion for General Electric, Bill Gates who piled US$16.6 billion for Microsoft, Lou Gerstner who generated US$81.7 billion for IBM, and Andy Grove who gave Intel a revenue figure of 26.3 billion. The book even presents tables that further show finer points of these leaders’ performance.

Actually, this book is “many things to many people.” If you are the type who just wants to have a closer look at the top 50 American executives, the book offers a profile that probes the leaders’ inner drive, philosophy and leadership style – and a brief resume that gives you at a glance the career of these executives. To the CEOs in this country, you can compare your own career path and see where you share styles and qualities with America’s top guns. To the yuppies, you can still model your budding career path to these inspiring pieces.

To those who enjoy measuring success beyond accidental fame and unexplained fortune, you will enjoy the rigorous analysis of the book that shows shareholder returns, cash flow, market value, and other precise measures. You will then have to look at tables, charts and a capsule report per company made up of a brief corporate profile, product lines and financial results.

An interesting chapter is a summary of ten “common traits” – which they sub-titled, “Prescription for Success in Business” – which are: Passion, Intelligence & Clarity of Thinking, Great Communication Skills, High Energy Level, Egos in Check, Inner Peace, Capitalizing on Formative Early Life Experiences, Strong Family Lives, Positive Attitude, and Focus on “Doing the Right Things Right.”.

Take heart, liberally educated executives. The traits show strength in the humanities – technical competence being a given.

After reading Chapters 1 to 3 of Part I, where the authors explain their view of greatness in business leadership, their in depth evaluation and their methodology – you can, at leisure, choose the leader that catches your fancy. Each time, you will have a rewarding encounter with these executives – and, each time, you come away realizing that there are as many ways to succeed as there are personalities.

What makes reading this book easy is that each executive profiled has a matching one-liner theme that somehow highlights what makes each one tick. For example, Bill Gates’s strategy is summarized in one word: “Missionary.” Fred Smith of FDX: “Not to be an entrepreneur is to begin the process of decline and decay.” Bill Marriott of Marriott International offers a word-play: “Taking care of the customers, and the people who take care of the customers.” Charles Wang of Computer Associates gives soul to his strategy: “You must have a moral compass.” And Alex Trotman of Ford Motor Company says it with passion: “Drive!”

How was this book possible? Actually, it was written by two top executives of Spencer Stuart U.S., a leading executive search company in the mainland. That explains why they have such talent and devotion to knowing the psyche, persona and performance of executives. I wonder if our growing number of headhunters in the Philippine use the same incisive analysis and have the same unerring eye for every detail in an executive’s life. If that’s the case, those who use their services are getting their money’s worth.

And for you where your career is spread out before you like a hazy map, get this book and begin sharpening the lines and marking the terrain of such road map'; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=road%20map">road map. Destination: CEO. Your journey paraphernalia: the book’s ten secrets for success. Your guide: “Lessons from the Top.”

Advertising serves a PR purpose

“Marketing Corporate Image”
James R. Gregory
NTC Business Books




The book’s subtitle, “The Company as Your Number One Product,” immediately tells us what it is all about. It is about corporate, not product, image. It is about corporate reputation, not brand recall. Of course, these are hair-splitting distinctions.

But if you scan this book, “Marketing Corporate Image,” having been used to the marketing – not public relations —function, you will realize that PR (of the high calibre and professional category) has a strategic contribution to creating goodwill among the company’s publics – beyond brand loyalty – and even to giving the company a compelling voice in advocacy campaigns – beyond the familiar jingle and MTV production.

You are now familiar with that feel-good slogan of General Electric: “We bring good things to life.” This book will tell you how the much-respected Jack Welch, president of GE worldwide, streamlined the huge GE organization, removed the “product fiefdoms” and “independent republics,” retired different advertising and PR themes, and unified the complex business structure under one slogan. A bonus is an appendix that gives the reader a peek into the drawing boards of GE’s communications people and ad agency when the slogan was born – naturally after going through a lot of “visions and revisions,” in the words of poet T. S. Eliot.

The book also devotes a special section to Xerox. When it decided to redefine its business beyond selling copying machines'; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=copying%20machines">copying machines, it adopted the tagline: “The Document Company.” A local telephone firm, responding to the challenge of convergence in the telecommunications field, did the same thing by adopting: “The Telecommunications Company.” In both cases, the use of the definite article “the” has given them industry leadership position – a strategic PR move, if I may say so.

Other companies, according to the book, were even adventurous enough to go beyond a change in corporate slogans. They changed their names.

The book says that, in some cases, a legal obligation exists for a name change. When the International Harvester sold its agricultural equipment operations to Tenneco, it also gave up its rights to its name and logo. But there were other reasons. One, the remaining operations are into other businesses and therefore need a new identity. Two, the market would be thrown into confusion if the two entities sport the same name. The result: the old IH went about configuring a new name with the aid of human and computer brains and came up with “Navistar.” To manage the transition, they took out corporate ads with the tagline -- “The rebirth of International Harvester” – to manage the transition.

Mergers and corporate takeovers are also discussed in the book, pointing to the need to communicate the new character of the corporation as a result of the “marriage”. This explains hyphenated names like Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, following the merger of Squibb Corporation and Bristol-Myers Company in October 1989 – and consequently creating “one of the strongest companies in the world” with leadership positions in pharmaceuticals, consumer products'; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=consumer%20products">consumer products, nutritionals and medical devices, according to James Gregory, the author. In the local scene, we have seen the mergers of banks which have opted to sport hyphenated names – for equal billing – or which decided, understandably with much negotiation, to retain a dominant name and retire the other.

The book has nine chapters and, if you do not have the stamina to read through the entire book, you can go direct to these stand-alone topics for your immediate need. But, the first chapter is must reading, since it establishes the premise that “image” is the “leading edge of corporate strategy.” There is one chapter that you may want to read immediately: “Advocacy Advertising,” also called issue or constituency advertising.

Gregory has done a good job highlighting this one strategic option available to corporations which somehow feel that the “side” of business is usually laid aside (no pun intended) by media for more populist positions.

Two notable cases are cited by the book: W.R. Grace & Co. and Mobil Corporation. W. R. Grace took out a series of advocacy ads against the increase of capital gains tax – with such headlines as: “The small investor: An endangered species,” and “Taxes up. Productivity Down.”

In Mobil’s case, it took out “op-ed ads,” with this premise: “Business needs voices in the media, the same way labor unions, consumers and other groups in our society do. Our nation functions best when economic and other concerns of the people are subjected to rigorous debate.”

Mobil, for example, took the issue of petroleum prices to the public with tables and graphs, with this title: “Let the numbers do the talking: Where’s the rip-off?” Listen, Philippine oil executives, as you face the juggernaut on the popular but ill-advised National Oil Exchange!

The Mobil series was aimed at giving the big picture, a must for issue management programs anywhere. This almost lyrical premise is in the book:

“An old saying in business is that people have to look at the big picture. And the big picture today is that famous one of earth rising, taken from the moon. Business has seen it too. We get the picture.”

Check out this book in your favorite bookstore – or in Amazon.com. It gives you the big picture about corporate image. Or, if you choose, it gives you a chance to get one piece of the mosaic at a time – at leisure. You will have enough time to reflect on its far-reading implications.

Handy quotes for upcoming political season

“More Political Babble”
David Olive
John Wiley and Sons Inc.


The year 2001 is six months away – and the political season is not far behind. Politics, the national pastime of us Filipinos, pumps the adrenaline of those throwing their hats into the political ring – and even those raring to make political campaigning a lucrative enterprise. Even now, the debate on lifting the ban on political advertisements has heated up – and has been the grist of many newspaper articles – and even editorials.

This book, “More Political Babble,” is a timely executive read for political observers to settle the fact once and for all that politics is a profession of lesser mortals – and for politicians to realize they have been found out to have “feet of clay” – if not mud.

Sub-titled “The Dumbest Things Politicians Ever Said,” the book of 244 pages should prove to be a real treat to worn out executives who want to get back at government bureaucrats who make their lives difficult. It has 16 sections, spiced with cartoons and boxed items for readability, and covering topics on the “campaign trail,” “Bill Clinton and the Stature Gap,” “That Whiff of Scandal,” “Better Left Unsaid,” and “Media Relations.”

A sampling of the book will describe it better.

On those who, this early, cast a covetous eye on politics, here’s a quote from Thomas Jefferson: “Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.” Spot those early dreamers!

And beware of dirty tricks that will mushroom at every corner this forthcoming season. This bumper sticker was sported by supporters of a governor to underscore the reputation of his opponent: “Vote for the Crook. It’s important.”

Well, for those who will run and lose anyway, this advice is timely: “You will reach a point where you can only be sure of two votes – yours and your wife’s,“ a quote from former President Jimmy Carter.

We chastise ourselves for electing so-called nitwits in the legislature, but listen to the Americans:

“The bottom line is there have been a lot of nuts elected to the United States Senate,” according to Sen. Charles Grassley in 1994 on why Republicans should not oppose Senate nominee Oliver North. We have Oliver North’s in abundance here. And, if you believe press releases of our senators, take the advice of Walter Bagehot: “The cure for admiring the House of Lords is to go and look at it.” Better still, ask your parish priest, because he may agree with the chaplain who said: “No, I look at the senators, and I pray for the country,” when he was asked if he was praying for senators.

Our Philippines politics has much to say about the so-called “weaker sex,” and these quotes and other versions are in abundance in this book:

“Behind every successful man is a surprised woman – Mary Pearson, wife of Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson. Or surprised women?

What about women like Gennifer Flowers who said, “I feel I’m the person responsible for putting Bill Clinton in the White House.” She said this in 1993, asserting that her claim of an affair with Clinton gave him publicity points.

On sleeping habits of political leaders, this anecdote could be a familiar scene:

Governor?

Yeah?

It’s nine o’clock

Well, you’re going to be inaugurated in two hours.

Does that mean I have to get up?

This was an exchange between Michael Deaver and Ronald Reagan on the morning of Reagan’s first inauguration as president in 1981.

On lying, we have these quotes that seem uncannily familiar:

“I’m a politician, and as a politician I have the prerogative to lie whenever I want – Charles Peackock, ex-director of Madison Guaranty, the Arkansas savings and loan at the center of the Whitewater investigation in 1994, explaining why he lied about writing a check to help erase a Clinton gubernatorial debt.

Another form of exercise is this from French: “I have lied in food faith,” says French politician Bernard Tapie in 1995, after his sworn alibi crumbled in court.

Lying is old. Even classical satirist Jonathan Swift was quoted in the book saying: “Promises and pie crust are made to be broken.” American Eugene McCarthy agrees: “It is dangerous for a national candidate to say things people might remember.” We have out own “no talk no mistake” strategy.

Finally, on media. This quoted prayer by Senate Chaplain Richard Halverson could be used by the Palace:

Thank you, Lord, for a free press…But gracious Father, investigative reporting seems epidemic in an election year – its primary objective to defame political candidates…Eternal god, help these self-appointed “vacuum cleaner'; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=vacuum%20cleaner">vacuum cleaner journalists.”

There are books that you read once and read again. They also come in handy during traffic. Most of all, they are a comfort when we are confronted with foibles and dumb actions of politicians. Give yourself a break. Grab this book.

Science (and art) of 'manufacturing' celebrities

“High Visibility”
Irving Rein, Philip Kotler,
Martin Stoller
NTC Business Books


What do actor Al Pacino, actress Alicia Silverstone, televangelist Jerry Falwell, cager Dennis Rodman and painter Claude Monet have in common? Apparently, not much if we look at their respective professions. But actually, they share one thing in common – they are a product of a conscious effort at making and marketing and professionals into celebrities. This is according to a book written by outstanding marketing gurus, “High Visibility.”

Pacino uses a battery of publicists every time he has a movie to promote. Silverstone made strategic choices in her career starting from her first commercial for Domino’s Pizza. Falwell smartly chose to project his name and not a forgettable corporation, Liberty University.

Rodman dyed his hair and had tattoos on his body to project a man “out of control.” And Monet (surprise!?) was transformed from an obscure painter to a world-renowned impressionist after the Art Institute of Chicago packaged 159 of his paintings into a blockbuster exhibit that drew almost a million spectators.

This book justifiably disclaims two things: one, it is not a “Hollywood-insider-tells-all” book; two, it is not devoted to the socio-psychological implications of being a celebrity.

It is actually one of the best marketing books that recently came out from the professors at Northwestern University – focused on an interesting subject: celebrity making. Every chapter proceeds from such subjects as “sculpting the image,” “visibility premium,” “celebrity industry,” “building blocks of transformation,” “delivering the image,” “the voice of visibility,” and “sustaining celebrity.”

The book is entertaining and engaging, because it removes the veil of mystique and voodoo in creating, transforming and marketing a celebrity. What the three authors have succeeded in doing is to discern “science” form “art” of creating a Pygmalion out of a promising or even an initially unimpressive professional.

Trust the three marketing gurus to give us an insightful account of this industry that has managed to be in the shadows simply because the practitioners want to maintain an “industry entry barrier” – a ploy to discourage new entrants.

A quick look at the authors telegraphs to us that this is no ordinary hodge-podge account of an industry made up of celebrity creators, talent managers, publicists, transformation experts, movie star lawyers, and image makers.

Philip Kotler is a familiar name to marketing strategists in the Philippines for his visits to this side of the world and for his “Marketing Management” book that is required reading in out MBA schools. Irving Rein and Martin Stoller are known globally as public communication, pop culture and visibility according to the book’s jacket.

Up till this nook, what makes a celebrity has not been defined. This, the three authors took the bull by the horns. They began by saying that the Oxford Dictionary is not much help with this definition: “a person of celebrity,” “a public character.” It’s a wonder how Oxford violates the first principle in defining something – that is, not to repeat the word.

Quoting The Celebrity Register, this definition was attempted: “A celebrity is a name which, once made by news, now makes by itself.” This is actually an illuminating and witty one-liner. And yet, marketing professors as they are, they offer this precise, yet prosaic, definition: “Celebrity is a person whose name has attention-getting, interest-riveting, and profit generating value.”

The two definitions depict our ambivalence about this interesting industry. It is both romance and science, emotion-rousing and revenue-raising, marketing dreams and selling reality. And yet, it will benefit both the practitioner and the would-be celebrity to know that this business indeed has its own “logic.”

One illuminating chapter is the book’s account of the evolution of the celebrity industry – more a discussion of phases than a chronicle of historical stages. It traces its growth from the “cottage industry stage” – where the celebrity aspirant’s backing comes from family and friends, propelled by his/her own self-training – to an “advanced industrialization stage” where the would-be celebrity can count on a complex organization of researchers, product planners, image builders and coaching professionals. Interesting is the “industry structure” constructed by the authors, showing allied industries that support and earn from celebrities.

It is a joy to read a marketing book spiced with tidbits and insights into the lives, strategies and astronomical incomes of “stars” – all familiar names in the movies, law, medicine, sports and politics. Do you need to read this book? Listen.

“Celebrityhood is not merely a reward unto its possessors. It also helps to meet the crucial public need for icons, role models and reference persons.” If you agree, read on: You – like me – may be tempted to try “manufacturing” a celebrity.

A ‘power salad’ of ideas: No to stale strategy

“The Invisible Touch”
Harry Beckwith
Warner Books 2000


If you are in the service industry, selling something intangible – the author calls it “invisible” – you sometimes wish you were in an industry that markets something concrete, palpable to the touch, and systematically reproduced in an assembly line. Why? Because such industry of “visibles” has color, scent, taste as is, therefore, an exciting and rewarding enterprise.

And those of us in the industry with invisible products – in securities market, insurance, investment banking, public relations, management consultancy, software design, etc. – should therefore be prepared to be in the gray world of being businesslike, bland, intellectual, and coolly professional.

Before you resign yourself to your colorless gray world, read this vibrant book by Harry Beckwith, “The Invisible Touch,” sub-titled The Four Keys to Modern Marketing.

That is because in this slim book of 232 pages, you will look at your business in a revolutionary way – alternately charmed, inspired and entertained by a marketing expert who gives you gems of insights and wisdom in clear, intelligent and engaging style.

You would hate glossing over any part of this book. There are no commercial pauses, in the first place, and you might miss an important point. Well, like an excellent marketing man that he is, he has made sure you get your hours worth. The sections are short, sweet, crisp and with just the right spice of wit and surprise – especially his one-liners at the end of the discussion of the four keys to modern marketing – price, brand, packaging and relationships.

These are just a few in a treasure chest'; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=treasure%20chest">treasure chest of one-liners in the book.

On pricing specifically, time charges by consultants – he concludes: “Charge by your worth, not by the hour.” Hear ye, lawyers and accountants!

On branding, particularly on corporate names, listen to this: “Look for a name that people can see, smell, taste, feel or hear – or better yet, all four. Be a Red Pepper.”

He gives this conclusion after ringing rebuke to people who use pompous, kilometric, polysyllabic names – which, he says, are forgettable. His spiel on Apple as a corporate name is instructive to people enamored with high sounding names.

On packaging, especially for great firms who have succeeded in being unexciting and colorless, he dishes this advice: “Look as great as you are.” This is a concluding one-liner after only three pages of anecdotes about oranges sprayed with chemicals to look better and golf courses maintained by a million-dollar pool of horticulturists to keep them perpetually green.

The author is a believer in a beauty like poet John Keats – he who wrote this classic line: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” However, this 21st century writer says it differently: “Beauty has muscle. It seizes us; we cannot get away.”

Finally, on relationships, he advises companies to make the customer feel important. This is nothing new, except that Beckwith says it better and with an astonishing insight that gives a new dimension to a firm’s customer-driven philosophy.

Listen: “We feel most in the din. As the world grows bigger every day, our desire to feel important grows into a need.” And then he gives this refreshing conclusion: “Create an oasis.” That should ignite your imagination to explore ways to make you firm a refreshing corporate station. Sounds like Coke, or Pepsi – but, see, the author is talking about the service industry.

The “four keys” actually comprise the core of the book. But, the author has intended to give “warm up” exercises to the readers with three main preceding sections: “Research and Its Limits,” “Fallacies of marketing,” and “What is Satisfaction?”

By design of by accident, the author succeeds in getting one heated up in a running agreement or argument. When he dares say, “research supports mediocre ideas and kills great ones,” we could hear ourselves fiercely disagreeing. Bu then, when he counsels, “stop measuring client satisfaction and start increasing it,” we find ourselves nodding vigorously.

This book is not your ordinary management or marketing nook. It is not even written in the mold of Peter Drucker (of many books), Philip Kotler (marketing guru), and Theodore Levitt (renowned for they theory on “marketing myopia”).

It is an easy read, because it males you feel the author is speaking in a lively seminar, spicing up his ideas with anecdotes, wit, humor and surprises. That is his intention. Let’s hear him:

“The wise marketer looks for buffets filled with food for thought: the isolated events, curious behaviors, odd trends, and tiny bits of data, all of whose relevance is unclear. The marketer who can assemble a shrewd blend of this information can create a power salad: an idea, strategy, or tactic that changes the business.”

In this book, the author offers a “power salad” – with a justifiable assurance that it will lead us to a refreshing oasis of new strategies if not a brand new business frontier.

'The most moving thing in a speech is the logic'

“On Speaking Well”
Peggy Noonan
Regan Books


To speech writers of executives and political leaders, this book is a real find. In fact, executives and politicians should read it so they will know if their writers are doing their job well.

Indeed, the book is a real find. Ironically, it is not even displayed as part of the centerpiece of a specialty bookstore in Alabang. It is actually nestled at the bottom of a shelf. Fortunately, I read this book earlier in a clothbound edition titled, “Simply Speaking” sent from the United States.

Peggy Noonan, the author, may not be familiar to many of us here. It was she who wrote that inspired line, “A thousand points of light,” for them President George Bush. She is the same author that earned an unabashed endorsement from New Yorker: “When the subject is speech writing, the first name on every list Peggy Noonan.”

If one is to summarize the central point – and therefore the most useful tip – of this book, it is this: “The most moving thing in a speech if always the logic. It is never flowery and flourishes, it is not sentimental exhortations, it is never the faux poetry we’re all subjected to these days.”

As speech writer of former President Ronald Reagan, Noonan demolished the myth that Reagan is only a smooth talker. No, the speechwriter says. Reagan, always had something to say, and he said it very well.

In this book, the author gives us some snippets of the Reagan speeches that prove her point and – actually, some really became memorable.

One of the moving speeches was the one delivered by Reagan after the Challenger exploded in mid-air. It was a moment for sentiment. But Reagan had substance, not sentiment. These lines are in the book:

“The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them – this morning, as they prepared for their journey, and waved goodbye, and ‘slipped the surly bounds of earth’ to touch the face of God.”

Was it a moving speech? Noonan asks. Yes, very. But moving because it was serious and logical, not sentimental, flowery or poetic.

If you have read Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, have been moved by Patrick Henry’s “give me liberty or give me death,” or have inspired by “this torch shall be passed to a new generation of Americans” you will know the reason beyond explaining it for its emotional contents.

The author says, these great speakers had something great to say in the first place.
Toward the latter part of this book, the author recounts a moving and spellbinding moment when Mother Theresa spoke before a group. The delivery was simple, to the point – but every point sank in, the book delivers a strong point: “Just be you” when you speak. The author ahs also dissected recent speeches. Bill Clinton, for example, has not been spared. When I heard Clinton’s first and second inaugurals, I really felt there was something missing. Noonan tells us: “A cavalcade of clichés. But the problem was not that it was written badly. It was though badly…

The book throws in a lot of tips to speakers and speech writers – from dealing with the “jitters” to dishing out humor, from giving a rousing toast to making a moving eulogy. Always, you get advice that comes from an excellent writer.

“Make friends with your audience” is a tip that overcomes “butterflies in the stomach” and instantly establishes rapport with the listeners who mush conclude that the speaker “cares for his subject.”

The book emphasizes that the speaker should select a subject he cares about. Otherwise, the intelligent audience will catch him faking it.

This book has bias for logic, for policy and for mastering the subject matter. The author even says: “You can break rule and do fine.” And yet, there is one non-negotiable point in speech writing as far as Peggy Noonan is concerned: “Without substance, the speech will perish.”

A business career can be a morally noble one

“Business as a Calling Work and the Examined Life ”
Michael Novak


If you have gone into business, have earned some considerable income, and somehow feel guilty about your “materialistic achievements,” listen to what the author says: “A career in business is not only a morally serious vocation but a morally noble one.”

You are a member of the academe or of some “noble” professions. You somehow have drifted into a small-scale business that now “creates wealth” for you and your workers. Problem is, you feel you now travel the low road of materialism. But, listen to this book:

“The heart of capitalism…is constituted by creative wit and the sheer joy of creating something solid, substantial, lasting and worth losing one’s shirt for. The zest is in the creating, The money that may (or may not) follow us more akin to public recognition than it is in itself.”

This does not sound like an enterprise driven by greed.

Then the author reveals, after studying the lives of famous wealth creators: “To most creators, the money itself is boring.”

The book, “Business as a Calling,” authored by Michael Novak, 246 pages, is subtitles Work and the Examined Life. It takes off from a Greek philosopher’s declaration: “An unexamined life is not worth living.” In that subtitle alone, Novak declared his belief that, after examining the “world of work” – engagingly laying its theological and philosophical basis – he arrives at the expected conclusion: Work is a ministry.

The author gives one the impression that he is a philosopher, theologian and political scientist – all rolled into one – investigating the ethical anchors of capitalism and business. As a matter of fact, Novak is a theologian, US ambassador, author and professor on Religion and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.

In this book, Novak revisits the landmarks thought of Adam Smith (author of “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”), Karl Marx (author of “Das Kapital”), and other famous names in political, economic and religious thought.

Novak regales us with little known facts, like: it was Karl Marx who gave the classic definition of capitalism, the idea Marx “hated fiercely.”

In a scholarly attempt to balance his understandable bias for capitalism and democracy, he also notes people’s low regard for businessmen, notably their loose moral, insatiable greed, and exploitative impulses. He quickly counters, however, that industrialists – anchored on sound moral foundations and governed by the principles of services and fair play – also abound.

The author seems to have a long-running debate with a socialist – or with an anti-capitalist. For example, on capitalism and the poor, he argues: “Capitalism makes it possible for the vast majority of the poor to break out of the prison of poverty; to find opportunity;…to rise into the middle class and higher. Watch the crowds on the streets of free nations: they walk the walk of the free.” It’s hard not to agree with Novak.

This nook devotes considerable pages on people’s “calling.” Novak admits that the word has a religious connotation to it and, in the process, elevates one’s work in business approximating the calling of, say, a priest, a minister or a nun.

A Catholic theologian, Novak quotes from Pope John Paul II to Augustine, from poet William Blake to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, from Kant to Kazantzakis, and from Plato to M. Scott Peck.

The remarkable think, though – considering the impressive array of ideas of thought leaders separated by centuries – is that the book has the discipline and coherence of a scholar who has more than a superficial appreciation of diverse philosophical and theological thinking.

Anyway, if we are not interested in this panorama of thought, the book will still be very useful to us, because it provides a well-argued ethical basis of why business is a “calling.” Often, friends chide businessmen for their endless pursuit of money, when businessmen know well enough that it’s not only money, but the joy of perfecting a craft.

It’s not really greed but the need to have enough economic power so that they can serve others. It’s not the perverse desire to decimate a competitor, but the thrill of putting together a strategy that wins. That’s why this book succeeds where lame or feeble answers from enterprise managers fail.

A bonus from this books is an entire chapter on philanthropy, titled: Giving it all away.” The chapter takes off from Andrew Carnegie’s dilemma (of Carnegie Hall fame) on how he can dispose of his wealth – because he cannot, obviously so, live forever, Read on and learn how Carnegie solved his dilemma – to the eternal of many.

How to read this book? First, scan it to get its drift. Then, on second reading, explore the thought slowly. I’m not saying that you will love the book but, I know, that you will end up loving your business calling over again. Yes, you will exult with the author when he uses this quote:

“Enterprise is the creation of surprise”

Modern day fable on decision making

“Who moved my Cheese”
Spencer Johnson, M.D.,
G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1998


It is somehow disconcerting – and unflattering – to read a book where two little mice are smarter that two little people (the book has to use “little people” in an attempt to cut them to the size of rodents).

In this slim book, the truth unsettles. Mice, by simply trusting instincts, find and get what they want (a big piece of cheese!) faster than humans. We, people, are slowed down by such needless baggage as anxiety, a “settler” mentality, and preoccupation with social standing. Of course, one can quickly add that cheese is the territory of mice, not people. But, by saying that, we are already conceding that we cannot even beat rats in their own game of chasing cheese! Which worsens out case.

And yet this book, “Who moved my Cheese?” is a charming modern day fable that portrays the foibles of little men – apply called “Hem” and “Haw” – and shows us how we can learn a lesson or two from a tandem of mice named “Sniff” and “Scurry.”

The two rodents in this book are better decision makers due to their simplistic thinking process, as contrasted to the two rat-sized men who are caught in a complex web of issues and concerns.

The author, Spencer Johnson – co-author of Kenneth Blanchard in the highly popular “The One Minute Manager” – has made sure he gives us hints on the character of the four creatures. Sniff and Scurry are in the never-ending activity of noting scents of cheese and of constantly running around. Hem and Haw, in contrast, are in the blissful state of believing that their “cheese” will be there forever, and are thus completely unprepared for a situation when the cheese disappears.

The 94-page book has four main parts: (1) a seven-page Foreword titled “The Story Behind the Story,” (2) “A Gathering: Chicago,” that reads like a Prologue (when former high school classmates gather for lunch, one of whom tells the Story); (3) the Story itself; and (4) “A Discussion,” that reads like an Epilogue, when the classmates interpret and apply the story to their lives.

The charming story is only 51 pages long, right in the middle of the book – which is only 54 percent of the entire opus. When I first got the book, I decided to skip the preliminaries, refusing to be influenced by so much commentary and annotation – and went direct to the story on Page 25 and never put it down until the end of the tale on Page 76. I never regretted going to the “cheese,” If you will, and this enjoyed its charm, richness and layers and layers of meanings.

The turning point of the story is when the Cheese at Station C disappeared.

The two mice responded one way. Narrates the author: They weren’t surprised. Since Sniff and Scurry had noticed the supply of cheese had been getting smaller every day, they were prepared for the inevitable and knew instinctively what to do.

As for the two little people, the author narrates: They were unprepared for what they found. “What! No Cheese?” Hem yelled. He continued yelling, “No Cheese? No Cheese?” as though if he shouted loud enough someone would put it back. “Who moved my Cheese?” he hollered. Finally, he put his hands on his hips, his face turned red, and he screamed at the top of his voice, “It’s not fair!”

Sounds familiar? The author, a medical doctor, knows us fellow humans only too well. No wonder, the mice are destined to get another Cheese Station first. The rodents declared, “It’s Maze time!” meaning, off they go through the Maze (translated: Life). But that is getting ahead of the story.

The story is an inexhaustible wellspring of simple truths and insights about life – not only about preparing fro change as the annotations have so belabored the point. I suggest that you read that story first. The fable reads like poetry, astonishing us with glimpses of truth with such simplicity. That reminds me of the dysfunctional role of paraphrase (the commentary covers almost half of this book) for a piece of work. A work of art, said one poet,

“…can not be repeated in paraphrase,

It is not a thought, but a grace.”

Human creations – paintings, poems and fables – possess a grace anad a life all their own. Viewers and readers can get from these works much more that even the creator intended. “Who Moved My Cheese?” – in the tradition of “The Little Prince” – is a book that executives, managers and all others can read once, twice and many more times – and still discover more gems of truth and grace about ourselves each time.

As for Cheese, like the proverbial cake, you cannot have your cheese and eat it too. If this very simple truism still escapes you – whether you are at the executive suite, the work place or at home – you need a turning point and say, “It’s Maze time!”