Overreaching

I am enjoying the post Christmas holiday -- a chance to catch up on cleaning, organizing, and reading. One interesting thing I am reading about is the Caroline Kennedy bid for Hillary Clinton's vacant senate seat. This has raised the eyebrows of not only partisans who would likely oppose her Democratic party affiliation in any case, but of democratic politicians who might agree with her.

First question is why the gumption by Ms. Kennedy to even venture? Actually, is is quite predictable and happens all the time. In business terms is is simply extending the brand. Many companies attach their popular brand identity to new products or ideas all the time in hopes of taking advantage of that brand's equity. Did you know that Dial not only has its leading bar soap product but sells a deodorant (at least used to) by the same name? Dole became famous for its pineapples . . . or was it bananas or peaches or . . . In extending brands they also run the risk of diluting them.

In politics the branding is fundamental. It is Hillary Clinton, not Hillary Rodham. It is Caroline Kennedy not Caroline Schlossburg (or something like that). The appeal and name recognition is a politicians gold. But like any product or company brands, political brands can overreach. People associate Dial as being a soap not a deodorant. Consumers can be attracted by known brands -- the Kennedy magic would seem to be a case in point. Paradoxically, they are pretty savvy in rejecting these known brands when they overreach into areas they lack competence.

Since John and Bobby Kennedy forged the brand in the 1960s (sowed by their father well before then), the Kennedy family and name has remained intriguing (see this Emery piece that lays out the brand dilution well). But it doesn't mean that people will always buy it. Ted, while loved in his home state, has only marginal national standing (including a failed run for the presidency). Other third generation Kennedies have fizzled when trying move beyond local politics. And I suspect Caroline will have a hard time making traction. People will want to give her a chance, but they also know she lacks some basic qualifications. Despite the rash of political dynasties in the making the American way is still one of merit.

Woe to be Rich

It is a bear to be rich these days. Take Harvard University, which reported losses of $9 Billion to its lofty endowment just in the third quarter. This amount is greater than the sum of the endowment funds for all but the most affluent universities. Running the Harvard endowment (i.e., managing the funds)was one of the most prestigious jobs in finance. Looks like Harvard was playing the risk reward game and got stung like many other common folk.

This week we learn of Bernard Madoff who has now made lots of rich people very mad. Amazingly, he was able to garner over $50 billion of investments from a number of well heeled investors only to use it for big Ponzi scheme. Many of these investors now are on the hook to lose most if not all of their investment. Interestingly, Mr. Madoff is the ultimate charmer, getting all kinds of people to trust him enough to put millions of their dollars in his hands. You can read about Madoff's ruse here. Seems that many people get sucked into presitious opportunities and are shamed to investigate lest they come off as a mere miser. I think it is called snob appeal.

Perhaps, the investors in Madoff's scheme need their own government bailout . . . consider that many of the victims of the scheme are charities and foundations. Madoff built his reputation in part on linking with charities. Many are now the victim of "friendly fire."

Ethics, Ethics . . .

Of course the big news today is the sitting governor of Illinois being arrested for trying to "sell" Barack Obama's now vacated Senate seat. This on the heels of senator Ted Stevens being convicted of corruption and Charles Rangel of New York not far behind. At least the voters of Louisiana voted out William Jefferson--the congressman who happened to have $90,000 just sitting around (Alaska did the same to Stevens). But this is not the story on ethics I want to explore. These "gentlemen" did not have ethical lapses as much as they simply engaged in criminal activity (fraud, conspiracy, and corruption is not an "ethical lapse").

John Thain, the most recent CEO of Merrill Lynch -- swallowed up by Bank of America at the height of this Fall's financial meltdown, reportedly asked for a bonus of $10 million. I am sure the consensus among the punditry and people at large is that Thain getting a bonus is outrageous considering that the value of the stock has gone from about $60 to $15 over the course of his tenure. Is it ethical for Thain to even think he deserves a bonus?

Well, actually maybe. Here is one pundit who says Thain deserves it because he saved the company (and thousands of jobs in the process). In fact, some reporting back in September chronicled how well Thain actually performed in saving a company that was in serious trouble when he took over a year ago. Compared to some of his counterparts at Bear Stearns and Lehman (Mr. Fuld make a nice comparison), Thain was very good in a very tough situation. Thain has evidently accepted the Board's decision not to grant a bonus, but the decision may be more one of public relations than actual lack of merit.

Fraud and corruption are not hard to evaluate or condemn . . . the ethics of compensation and many other business decisions are prone to debates more difficult to evaluate.

Coach Tocco

This weekend our men's soccer team hosts the GLVC tournament, with the Hawks earning their spot as host based on a stellar record this season. In fact, they have lost only one game this year and won several conference awards.

Having a winning Hawks soccer team is not unusual -- hasn't been for nearly 40 years as Rockhurst has the winningnest active collegiate soccer coach in the county. That's right, no current coach has won more games -- 564 wins! His players call him coach, but I have known him for the past 14 years as Dr. Tocco, or just Tony.

You see as good a coach as he is, Dr. Tocco is a better Accounting professor, where I see his work most. I have had the privilege of working with him on courses (even though I only dabble in accounting) and co-authoring articles with him. As a colleague he is just about as reliable as running water.

I am quite glad to know and work with Dr. Tocco and often forget that he has this other life as a top-flight coach -- as durable as Bobby Bowden and Eddie Robinson. When in his office on 3rd floor Conway--where you will find him just about every day--you would never know he has even played a game. In fact, I have never heard him talk about one of those 564 wins; you just about have to pry it out of him.

This time I have no excuse to ignore his game -- it is right here at Rockhurst this weekend. Best of luck Coach Tocco!

Newspapers and Bias

I am always amazed at the reach of our Helzberg School to the local business community. This week, the School (thanks to Turner White and John Meyer) put together quite a panel of local journalists to discuss the role of the media in the election -- part of the HSOM's Center for Leadership and Ethics speaker series. The subject of bias was discussed.

Mark Zieman, a recent alum of our Executive Fellows, spoke earlier today to our current Fellows class on the state of the newspaper industry. Zieman is a good person to talk about it -- he was 10 years editor at the KC Star and is now for the last year or so Publisher for the Star. Mr. Zieman talked to the class about the challenges of the industry, pointing out the profound impact of things like the internet and the economy on the newspaper business.

The issue of bias also came up in the discussion today. In fact, the topic brought on a debate between Randy Schwering and I on that topic and others, which made me think on the current politcal issue of elitism . . .

Flu Shots

Political partisans often throw barbs of anti-Americanism at their opponents. Often this is directed on topics of war and about how America is represented in the world. Many rightly argue that simply criticizing our country is not anti-american nor unpatriotic.

But Americans seem to be non-partisan in their dislike of laws that mandate their individual choices, especially regarding their health. New Jersey passed a law--from the state's public health commission--mandating all pre-school children must get a flu shot to attend any of these schools. The response has been predictable. Reports the AP, "Opposition to the policy is vehement."

Said one of the organizers of the rally against the vaccine law, "This is not an anti-vaccine rally — it's a freedom of choice rally." Americans tend to value individual choice more than the more abstact public benefit . Efforts to take choice away from families on vaccines may be the real anti-Americanism.

Insanity of Markets

After the crazy week we just had, I wonder the same thing as this person in his op-ed in the NY Times. Despite the genius of the market it does lose its equilberium sometimes. Like it did this week. So where does the fault lie -- with the markets or the government? And there are many opinions on both sides -- here is one defending the market -- which makes it hard to know the answer.

I have some ideas. The problem with markets is very simple: people are involved. Markets are by intent impersonal, set up to allow actors to pusue their own self-interest. People are smart and ingenious and will try to outsmart the market [way oversimplified here because the market is more than just . Amazingly, the market is quite resilient but sometimes gets too far out of whack. Those in charge of regulating these markets (people, again) try to get it out of whack. These regulators "acting for the people" are trying to balance competing goods. These goods are inevitably political and ideological.

Often these prescriptions are counterproductive to the market or the market is counter to them. For example, a strong belief in equity (sometimes called justice) leads to government action that mitigates inquitable market effects. An impersonal market will always be inequitable from the perspective of certain actors at certain times.

I suspect people are distrusting the market right now -- trillions of dollars of stock value have vaporized, much of it retirement money. The question is will we move towards more government control and intervention? Fortunately, I have a lot of colleagues here in the Helzberg School who can help me understand finacial system that is so out of whack (and affecting everything else) right now.

Golden Parachutes

This morning my wife heard the news that the now failed bank of WaMu would be making a payout of $19.5 million to its departing CEO. Her reaction was understandable -- who are we bailing out here? A normal reaction, but got me to wondering about how concerned we should be about the amount of executive pay.

First, is it unprecendented? Consider Andruw Jones, a baseball player signed by the Los Angeles Dodgers this year for $36 million (guaranteed). Here was an aging star on his downside who performed abysmally during the year. By any standard he did not earn his exhorbitant salary . . . didn't deserve to even play. So why did the Dodgers pay him $36 million? Because that is what it took to get him to come to work for them. This is a similar situation companies face hiring CEOs.

Second, whose fault is it? In the case of Jones, nobody asks the player to give up the money; they fault the boneheads who signed him. So the ones who are at fault for these companies are the boards who supposedly represent the shareholders. Those that are hiring the CEOs agree to these golden parachutes, in part, to get them to come to work. It is a market mechanism as the wage is not set necessarily on the value but on the supply and demand for the position sought.

One conclusion drawn by some (see this link to people now calling for a new New Deal) is that it is the fault of the market, because it is not impervious to things like greed and corruption. Others defend the market such as this from the Chicago Tribune. I think the bigger error is that these companies overvalue experience, overpaying for people based on what they have done in the past. Think about it: the Dodgers would have been much better off just taking a chance on a 23-year prospect, paying him well less than $1 million. Many of these companies would be better off looking at managers with less experience or slighter pedigrees. Probably, most of them reside within the company if they just develop them and give them a chance.

The Power of Teams

This past week, I was once again reminded of the how important teams (and well managed ones) are.



First, this weekend, the U.S. in somewhat of an upset recaptured the Ryder Cup (golf's American-European biannual team competition). They did this after losing the last 3 competitions -- the last two by lopsided scores. They did it without the best player on the planet, Tiger Woods. And they did it with 6 rookies on the team. So how did they do it?



Golf is an individual sport, but the Ryder Cup is the closest thing professionals get to a team golfing event. But it would still seem that even in this event you are only as good as the talent on the team. But actually, teams can generate synergy that makes them greater than the sum of their parts. Sometimes this synergy (or team dynamics) is spontaneous or just happens. Usually, however, it happens because of a leader with a plan.



The U.S. team's leader, Captain Paul Azinger, did some things like a) set up 4-man sub-teams that played together to prepare for the team events; b) picked players based on toughness and youth rather than "over-rated" experience; c) and focused his team (many of them millionaires) on performance rather than getting along with each other (he did away with some of the common cushy perks that were prevalent for previous Cup squads). Most importantly, Azinger had a plan and implemented it. Sometimes luck is the result of hard work and a well thought out plan.



Second, and much more offbeat . . . last week I had the opportunity to work with about a dozen managers in different fields. One of these managers is also a fan of the Cleveland Indians, but his lifelong fandom has ended temporarily -- thanks to the wonderful world of capitalism. At mid-year, Cleveland threw in the towel for the season trading their best player. This fan decided to be a mercenary and sell his fandom on eBay!



And he found a buyer who paid $300 so that this disaffected Indian fan would now become a Chicago Cub fan for the rest of the year. Terms of sale: must watch at least one Cub game a week and send two emails about the Cubs a week -- as long as the Cubs are still playing this season. Entrepreneurism alive and well! Now why didn't Royals fans think of this.

Busy week at the Fed

A week ago tonight, our Center for Leadership and Ethics sponsored a talk by Thomas Hoenig, CEO of the Kansas City Fed. Talk about timing -- coming on the heels of the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and now just before the meltdown of Lehman Brothers. The 10th District Fed Chairman did not disappoint as he gave a succint history of the Fed -- created as a way to counterbalance Wall Street--and then gave insight on the macro factors now affecting the turbulent economy. While a distressful time for many right now, the news right now is quite instructive on the risks and rewards of a market system.

Since the beginning of the semester, several other local business leaders have come to speak to our business students. In August, Irv Hockaday came to speak to our Fellows. They have also heard from local businesspeople Bob Gourley, Terry Dunn, Danny O'Neil, and Barnett Helzberg.

This is one reason it is so good to teach at Rockhurst and, I trust, to be a Rockhurst student of business.

Experience, Part II

I was one of the 37 million people that watched Sarah Palin speak at the Republican Convention last night. Even opponents seemed to agree this person from "nowhere" can give some speech. To cut to the chase, there is strong sentiment among many people that Mrs. Palin is a new political star. And hardly anyone heard of her a week ago. This makes me wonder: how many other raw talents we have never heard of are out there?

Go to the book store and you will find any number of books on how to get to the best colleges. Families now invest in couselors to help them get their teenage children eligible for Yale, Brown, or Cornell. The purpose is to grease the way to the elite experiences that lead to the best opportunities. Nothing wrong with this, but how many times do we see people who underperform their resume? I was talking to a faculty colleague and he noted the number of experienced executives -- many of them with exquisite predigrees -- who are recycled into new jobs to continue to underperform their "so-called" credentials.

Politics aside, Sarah Palin has outperformed her resume (graduated from an shool in Idaho and started in the PTA) and not just based on the speech (read here on what she has accomplished as governor). My guess is there are scores of other people in other fields with equally inauspicious credentials who perform at very high levels. I would much prefer to be under-credentialed and over performing. There are many, many of these overachievers anonymously getting things done in all walks of life.

I don't need to teach at the Ivy league to work with smart, high performing colleagues. Most importantly, I look for some more of these raw talents to emerge to have . . . Rockhurst degrees, of course!

Experience

It is now a week into school and I suspect there are a lot of freshman students who are a bit sleep deprived as they adjust to the new experience. Regarding experience, I have been most intrigued the last few days concerning our presidential candidates, which makes me wonder how important experience really is to performance.


In some cases, experience is actually a negative. The population of world class gymnasts is typically made up of teenagers – often very young ones. The two best two female gymnasts in the just completed Olympic Games were 16 and 18. Once the skills are learned, experience can be a negative because what you learn from experience is how easy it is to make mistakes (not to mention the body is less nimble).


In some cases, experience can predispose people to be blind to new ways of thinking about things. Entrepreneurs are good at thinking outside the box—where current knowledge is of little use. Some entrepreneurs are very good at doing this over and over. I suppose their experience is helpful, but there have been many successful entrepreneurs who were inexperienced (e.g., Michael Dell).


In some cases, the advantage of experience is short-lived. Consider three restaurant servers: one with six days experience, one with 6 months, and one with 6 years. Certainly, the one with 6 days is going to be at a disadvantage, but is the one with 6 years necessarily that much better than the one with 6 months (all other things being equal)? Sharp people can easily pick up the skills needed to be a good server – though some maturation and life experience will certainly give someone better tools to take on unusual situations.


How about CEOs? Well, it would seem that experience is crucial as many of them are recycled into new jobs as struggling companies attempt turnarounds. But it is undetermined how well these experienced executives have fared – often they seem to steer the ship right over the edge based on the scores of bonehead moves made by these experienced leaders.

Presidents are equally hard to figure. Are Barack Obama and now Sarah Palin qualified to be president of the United States? It seems that there are a number of things that might be considered appropriate qualifications.





First, knowledge. Many people want their president to be intelligent and have broad knowledge. Ronald Reagan, arguably one of the better presidents, was dubbed an “amiable dunce.” As this article in 2004 notes, there have been plenty of supposedly brilliant presidents (Hoover, Carter, Wilson) who have been failures as presidents and “dumb” ones (Reagan and Truman) who were not.


Second, accomplishments. Often people are promoted based on their accomplishments in any number of specialist fields (a great salesperson or a legislator) but this does not easily translate to executive work. Perhaps the biggest accomplishments of the Presidential and V.P. candidates are that they have gotten themselves elected; getting nominated as Obama and McCain have done is an even bigger accomplishment.

Finally, experience. An objective expert on presidents, Richard Reeves, recently noted that there is no way to prepare to be president because the issues that they will face are mostly unknowable or at least uncertain. Although some decisions are strategic, others are reactive. I suspect that while experience is not unimportant it is also overrated (as William Kristol from the NY Times asserts). Says Clive Crook for Financial Times, "No training or experience can prepare you for the presidency. On any given issue, the president is surrounded by specialists who know infinitely more about the subject than he [or she] does. The ability to weigh the quality of that advice, and then act on it, is what matters." In other words, experience can easily be trumped by effort and talent.


So freshmen: don’t bewail your lack of experience as it offers you some advantages . . . but don’t substitute it for hubris, which your professors can detect easily.

The Job Search

On Tuesday, a representative from H&R Block visited my class to give students tips on internships and job searches. Our business faculty thought it important enough to target several junior level courses for this topic on Tuesday morning. Of course this topic should be of some importance to most college juniors as they think beyond college. The prospect of choosing careers and finding jobs seems like it would be a daunting task, but it is something many people in this country, especially those with a college degree, take for granted.

I can only imagine how those many people in the Great Depression felt when jobs were hard to come by, or any number of eras and regions where jobs were neither plentiful nor chosen. Yet, with so many Americans able to get college degrees we do have the great privilege to have at least some choices in our careers and jobs.

When I graduated in 1980 with a degree in Accounting I did not think that much about my career -- I just thought I would get a job, which I did. Since then I have changed careers (not jobs) twice. Lucky for me I was able to do this (at some financial sacrifice). My father, on the other hand, stayed in the same job for 45 years -- he grew up in the depression and jobs were a thing to be cherished.

Anyway, there are probably two points in this ramble: 1) students should be thoughtful about their careers and college is a good place to do that and 2) although there is some whining about the ups and downs of the economy, be thankful for the abundant opportunities even in a "down" economy . . . college students like I once did can easily take this opportunity for granted.

Getting that Feeling

On the eve of a new school year, I have been hard at work preparing for classes by . . . watching the Olympic gymnastics. Well, it is the one sport my girls will sit down and watch with me.

Tonight Shawn Johnson won the gold and in a subsequent interview, I heard her answer to the question of whether she would train for the next 2012 Olympics. Here response is telling and should be understood by everyone, including coaches and managers. She said that while she had bet this would be the end (afterall, 8-10 years of guelling training is quite a commitment for a 16-year old!), she now was having a change of heart, "But after being here, I would give anything to feel this way again." Achieving excellence is what gives people this feeling and it is understandable that people will sacrifice lots to have it again.

It is why so few athletes quit while they are on top -- what is going to give them that feeling ourtside their competitive excellence? Michael Jordan couldn't get it being a mediocre baseball player. It is why CEO's come out of retirement to save another sinking ship. Playing golf does not give them that feeling. It is why successful people in about any field, will "retire" only to go back to work doing something very similar so that they can get that feeling.

So my daughters and I are already planning for the London 2012 Olympics to watch Johnson and probably her equally successful teammate, Nastia Luiken compete even though they are "older" women by gymnastics standards and have already given more than young girls should.

And I come back to start two new courses, two new sets of students, the pressure of providing them productive learning experiences . . . why? Of course, it is so I can "get that feeling."

The Good, the Bad, and the . . .

The last three days might be a microcosm for my immediate future. Saturday was the good. As much as students feel relief and satisfaction of finishing that last semester paper, faculty feel the same when they complete grading the last paper. Friday and Saturday I "crammed" to finish grading papers for my two summer courses. And the nice thing was that I learned some interesting things in many of these papers on topics related to corporate responsiblity and strategy. Now onto other projects.

Sunday was also okay, but nonetheless different as my oldest daughter and I attended a reception for new Freshman here at Rockhurst. Yes, my oldest is now off to college, a rite of passage I guess. Being a college professor I should be rejoicing in such rite and I am. Still, life will be different as she shifts more time to things outside of our home. Perhaps, I am just being selfish -- she will have less time to assist me in things like shopping at the grocery store and mowing the lawn for me. Fortunately, however, I will know where to find her!

Tonight, well it was the . . . eerie. My wife and I attended a get aquainted session for parents of new students to the private school my youngest daughter will be attending. Nearly 20 years of marriage and 4 kids, I have managed to avoid all such things as parent-teacher meetings, school get to know your child sessions, etc. (more on why I have avoided them later). That is, except when I was teaching sixth grade in the early 1990s. The people at the school were very nice and we are "cautiously optimistic" that this will work well for our daughter. Still, this is a new era for our family, not quite an empty nest, but different just same.

The public good

Today two things caught my eye (and ear) that relate to what I think of as the public good. First, I read an editorial on the potential sale of the Pittsburg Steelers, a football franchise owned by the Rooney family since 1933. Secondly, I heard an ad on the radio by T Boone Pickens calling for an aggressive move towards wind and solar energy -- he has a website promoting his plan.

The Rooney family is looking to sell because of the looming whammy of the estate tax. With the value of their franchise now nearly 3/4 a billion dollars, the elderly family members who own most of the franchise could be hit with a large tax bill. Even though they own a valuable asset, it doesn't mean they have liquid assets to cover a big bill. As the article notes, the coming election may influence the impact of the tax on the current ownership--whether Congress decides to increase the estate tax or not.

I don't know much about Mr. Pickens except that he has a LOT of money from oil and has given a lot back to things like his alma mater, Oklahoma State. In this current gambit he makes an appeal to wind and solar energy, touting its cleanness along with the economic imperative that we come out of the clutches of foreign oil. Here is the thing--a major plank of his plan is to get Congress to act: "On January 20, 2009, a new President gets sworn in. If we're organized, we can convince Congress to make major changes towards cleaner, cheaper and domestic energy resources." Certainly looking for favorable conditions is the right of any company--including getting favorable laws and subsidies.

The question is whether Congress will make things better. While income redistrution is a popular tactic, it also has unintended consequences. The Steelers are being pursued by a hedge fund, private equity concern, making a family built business vulnerable. In the case of T Boone, he is coming off as a conscientious public citizen looking for help from Congress. The question is should Congress let the market work to determine the viability of wind and solar (in other words, Pickens should convince consumers more than Congress) or does it assist businessmen like Pickens who have now staked themselves to this strategy? While an unfettered market is problematic, I also doubt Congressional wisdom to determine ultimate public goods.

$400 Million

It is free agent season for the National Basketball Association and another star player signs a big contract -- $111 million for Gilbert Arenas. This is guaranteed money. Yet, this pales in comparison to another big contract announced today: talk radio's Rush Limbaugh signed with Clear Channel for $400 million over 8 years. While the topic of Limbaugh and his impact on the political environment could lead to a lively debate, I am interested in this question: Has he earned the windfall?



First, some comparisons. With the new contract, which includes a $100 million signing bonus, Limbaugh's annual salary ($50 million not counting ancillary income from merchandise, etc.) now surpasses celebrities like Leno, Letterman, and Dr. Phil but is still well behind Spielberg, Oprah, and J.K. Rowling.



Like many of these celebrities, Limbaugh is a businessperson. Unlike many of them, he created a new market, so he is in some ways a entrepreneur who hit it big. In the mid-1980's am radio was a dying medium. The radio played mostly to local audiences. In 1988, Limbaugh took the chance of taking his show national--identifying a market need for a point of view (and style) not found in other media venues. So he is much like the many entrepreneurs who identified a new market and were able to exploit it. This NY Times Magazine article, which also came out today, tells part of the story.



Not only did he create a new market, he built a strong buisness model. He saw his customers as not only his listeners but the advertisers promoting their products on his show. He built a loyal audience (customer loyalty is what every product or company seeks) that not only listened--creating the largest radio audience--but bought the products of the companies sponsoring his show.



And he has made this work for 20 years; a proven talent and formula convinced Clear Channel to pony up for $400 million for 8 more years. It was a business deal based on market results . . .

Corn

Last Friday I spent all day driving to northwestern Iowa and back to bring one of my daughter's home from a camp. Besides just missing a storm that blew through Omaha, we noticed many of the crop fields in high water. It is not news that Iowa has been hit hard by flooding--though the most severe problems are east of where we drove. One thing that I thought of looking at those corn fields was the rising price of corn.

Well it turns out that the dire reports of corn shortages may have been vastly overstated. Today's Wall Street Journal reports that while there has been signficant crop damage, estimates did not account for increased planting this year from last. An innocent mistake. Yet, that misinformation caused the price of corn to skyrocket (and plummet again based on this news).

No doubt in the market there will be winners and losers because of this -- I sure would like to have sold corn short! Still, this kind of news has business people pulling their hair, especially if they insist they can make data certain decisions.

Commodity Prices

I spent the last week with managers from several different industries--agriculture, steel, large industrial pipes, newspapers, technology services. These participants confirm the fact that commodity prices in addition to oil are increasing steeply. Biofuels and overall world demand is driving up the cost of grains. Skyrocketing steel costs are driving up costs for anyone using steel (gone up 75% in just last year according to one of these managers). Newsprint is also going up, impacting newspapers.

Today's Wall Street Journal reports that soaring transportation costs (along with other factors) is starting to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. If soaring fuel costs have this kind of impact (see chart), other chain reaction impacts will occur that will be upsetting to consumers and a number of industries. Commodity prices are causing havoc.

But are they? Commodities tend to be driven by supply and demand. These commodities that are going up are feeling supply and demand pressures (either increased demand, sagging supply, or both). When there is demand pressure, prices naturally go up, which incents companies to increase supply. So these price increases are actually a beneficial effect of supply and demand. In an environment where business is allowed to operate freely (relatively speaking) forces will soon emerge that increase supply or find less expensive substitutes. Also, consumers will change their habits to decrease demand as they have more trouble paying the high price.

And it does hurt a lot of companies operating in businesses using the commodities. But it also opens opportunities for businesses who identify market needs and find ways to exploit them. Of course, politicians will get involved and rarely do they make things better in the long run. So watch in this next cycle of the elections for politicians to pander on the rising commodity prices, promising to fix the short-term pain that is part of business. But don't bet any of their solutions will be effective . . . just hope they do little harm.

Gino Fever

The summer schedule allows me to do more reading -- and catch interesting articles such as the one in today's Wall Street Journal. On the back of the the Marketplace section is the story of Boston's new craze with an anonymous character from a 1977 American Bandstand video - you can find the article here (and don't need to be a basketball fan to enjoy).

Breifly, this video clip is being shown at Celtic games (pro basketball) and the shot of this young man (in the typical mid-70's style) has created quite a stir among the Celtic faithful. Funny thing is that you might find the video overrated after reading the article, but I guess you have to be there at the game to appreciate it. (Here is the link to the video).

In this day of million dollar marketing campaigns, it is still a mystery sometimes of what fad can take off on a life of its own, often making someone very rich. Interestingly, the "Gino" character drawing all the attention in the video is not around to enjoy his sudden posthumous fame. I imagine, however, there must be some relatives looking for a lawyer to cash in -- or more likely the other way around.

Loyalty

This past week Scott McClellan's new tell all book of the Bush Presidency has created some buzz. I haven't read the book, but the story is that McClellan has turned on his old boss by saying, for example, Bush mislead on the run up the war, for example. The most interesting assessment of McClellan and the book comes from Byron York. Here is one excerpt:

He [McClellan] was there because he was extremely loyal to George W. Bush, and there was a group of people who came with Bush from Texas -- Harriet Miers, Alberto Gonzales. Perhaps Matthew Dowd was in this group. These were people who were not particularly conservative. In some cases, they weren't even Republicans. So they come here, and their only thing is their big loyalty to Bush.

I think this analysis is about right. Although loyalty is a great thing in a family, including a dog, loyalty is overrated by many managers. Ironically, Bush came to the White House as one of the few, if only, MBA’s. Unfortunately, he has consistently overvalued loyalty in his selection of some top lieutenants. Also ironic in this case is that loyalty does not guarantee someone won’t go off the reservation. As York notes later, people like McClellan (especially ones put in a job they are unfit for) are likely to become disillusioned and turn on the very person they admire. Managers of all ilk should read this as a cautionary tale.

The Summer Phase

For students summer always means a change of pace -- time spent meeting short deadlines and "managing" a full set of courses along with other responsibilities is now free for other things. For professors, the change of pace is nearly as dramatic.  In this space, I will chronicle how we professors use our time, professionally, that is.

And I will try to avoid the mundane, except when it is relevant.  One week past graduation, I am now well past grading and closing of the spring semester.  While a big event of post semester is simply cleaning up my workspaces (and uncovering lost stuff), the best thing about it is now having time to really read.  Sometimes this leads to some real serendipitous finds.  As I was preparing my bag for a short 1-day vacation with my wife, I stuck in The Essential Drucker by the sage of management, Peter Drucker.  I didn't really think I would read it (as I had two other books in my bag), but always want to be prepared.  

Turns out I did look at the book and found a chapter relevant to a piece I was writing.  Every month I ghost write an article on management for this site. The chapter, as most of Drucker's stuff, was perfect for helping me finish the article (not posted yet).  The summer phase is great for faculty because it lets us explore topics in ways that are hard in the final half of a full teaching semester. 

Youth Sports

In the news is the claim that youth sports has a tremendous positive impact on those that participate.  Interesting stuff considering all the negative influences that lurk for young people today.  Yet, my initial reaction was that the conclusions drawn by these authors is a bit too far reaching in its praise.

The premise they build is that young people who play sports are much more likely to be successful (based on career earnings).  The rationale is that athletes come to appreciate competition and because of the work they exert they come to appreciate that hard work, not luck, determines their success.

Some questions I have. First, can't young people challenge themselves in endeavors other than sports (and I love sports and played them as a child).  If anything, I see this as an indictment on schools for making learning so trivial (by promoting values in popularity and social interaction among peers) that sports is a lone outlet to express themselves in a way that challenges them. No doubt, many a young person who has run afoul of basic social norms has found a safe haven in organized sports.  I would think (and I have seen it in my own kids) that at age 14, 15, and 16 people can get fully engaged in non-athletic activities that challenge them improve and measure themselves against others (e.g., writing books, starting businesses, drawing, sewing, experimenting, Eagle Scouts, etc. etc.).  The problem is that K-12, with a few exceptions, completely stifles this type of engagement, instead spending time getting kids ready for tests [which by the way is an unfortunate byproduct of the school culture where many a student challenges themselves to be a good student not for learning sake but for the competition of getting grades].

Secondly, not mentioned in the article are possible negatives to youth sports.  In general, I think they are quite positive; but like any good they can taken too seriously and too often.  Are families being controlled by youth activities (not just sports) so that young people have little time other than going from activity to activity.  Are all the people in youth soccer really using it as a platform to improve themselves and engage in useful competition or are some of them simply using it as one more thing to take up their time -- so they don't have to account for free time to do things like reading and helping out with the family chores?

Well anyway, on to other current events:  Our seniors and many graduate students officially graduate tomorrow . . . I look forward to seeing them get recognized for the commitment to finishing their degree.  Congrats to them.

Morale and CEO Pay

My last post cited the WSJ article (April 30) that claims CEO pay is out of control and affecting employee morale.  Does CEO pay really disrupt morale?  Maybe, but I can think of more important reasons.  

First, being part of a losing team will impact morale.  When layoffs start, people and the press may grumble about the salary of the CEO.  They are grumbling because of the results of the company -- if the company is doing well the salary is practically irrelevant (just like the Celtics morale is high even though Garnett makes so much money).

Second, when people are working they are not likely to be thinking about the CEO's  salary unless there are other problems that are distracting them from working.  There are lots of units inside big companies that operate very well regardless of the CEO, salary and all.  People will commit to business goals even if they dislike corporate staff or the CEO.  Poor morale is caused by poor management below the CEO that cannot establish clear goals that allow people to succeed and use their skills.

Inflated CEO salaries are the rightful concern of Boards of Directors (as the agents for the shareholders).  For those doing the work I doubt it has the impact many would assume.

 

CEO Pay run Amok

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Carol Hymowitz reports that the growing pay gap between CEOs and average workers is “fuel[ing] worker woes.”  It got me to thinking about the claim.

She reports the gap has roughly doubled since 1994 to 180 times – the multiplier for the difference between the CEO and an average worker wage.  With the average CEO salary about $8.8 million, the average worker wage is just short of $50,000. 

It is hard to argue that such a disparity might be dispiriting to workers.  Further the incredible golden parachutes awarded to deposed CEO’s [that is, ones who have been chief of a losing company] is disconcerting if not sickening.  The unfairness of a failing company rewarding its departing CEO with such largesse (millions of dollars in some cases) while laying off workers living from pay check to pay check is obvious.

But is morale really a function of the CEO pay?  I did a quick check of some NBA salaries to see what kind of disparity they work under.  Take the Boston Celtics who had the best record in the NBA this year and are favorites to win the title.  The highest paid player on the team is Kevin Garnett who makes $23,750,000 this season.  I compared him to the lowest paid contributing member to this excellent team—Glen Davis who made $427K as a rookie this year.  This is a differential of 55 times between peers who must work together as a team!

This kind of pay gap is not unusual; the Denver Nuggets highest paid player make just over $20 million and a frequent starter (Linas Kleiza) makes about $1,000,000. One of the points of the article is that the ones affected by the high CEO salary is the rest of the executive team.  General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt is quoted in the article, “Should the CEO make five times, three times or twice what this group [Executive Team] makes? That’s debatable, but 20 times is lunacy.”  Well the best team in the NBA has a gap of 55.  Next time I will explore further the common assumption on high executive pay.  

My apologies for the month "sabbatical" from blogging.  I want to write just a bit about my 2 1/2 year old son Paul (the picture is him about a year ago).  At the end of February he had surgery to remove a swollen lymph node on his right jaw; about 10 days ago we finally got a diagnosis from that biopsy.  The very good news is that Paul does not have any cancer.  He has a a bacterial organism called MAC.  This is a slow growing thing, thus the time from surgery to diagnosis.  The bacterium is nearly ubiquitous in our environment -- dirt, dust, etc.--and most people are able to handle it.  In a small number of cases an otherwise healthy child gets an infected lymph node from the bacterium.  Although related in some way to the TB bacterium, MAC is not contagious in any way.  

This bacterium is mostly localized and the way to get rid of it is to cut the skin. Based on our latest visit to a doctor at Children's Mercy, Paul will likely need another surgery to get rid of this. In the meantime he will be taking some anti-biotics.  You can imagine this has caused some stress for our family -- though not too much because Paul is pretty healthy otherwise.  We are very thankful that this is curable even as we must be patient for it to heal.

It is amazing how little control we have over things like health.  The doctor said that this was probably just "bad luck."  I know there are many, many other families dealing with much tougher circumstances and in many cases are the victim of bad luck, too.  Not unlike managers who must depend on getting results from others they have no control over . . . oh by the grace of God . . .

Addendum to Political Brands

Many corporations have sufferred mightily over the years because they failed to respond to a crisis quickly and decisively. Firestone a few years ago dismissed the relatively small percentage of accidents attributed to faulty tires and it nearly killed them (even a small perecntage can lead to deaths of real people).

Political candidates face similar crises -- and Barrack Obama is facing one now with the mainstream media showing inflammatory sermon clips of his pastor. While there are political arguments pro and con, I am interested in how the crisis is managed by the campaign. In this case, I would think Obama must confront the issue quickly and head-on for two reasons: 1) the image of the pastor compromises the brand image Obama has worked so hard to create and 2) left to fester this could mitigate his effort to become candidate with mass appeal (national candidates cannot be niche players that appeal to only one market or demographic).

Managing Campaigns

To come back to the application of management to politics . . . yesterday the New York Times ran a headline: Sniping by Aides Hurt Clinton’s Image as Manager. The article is interesting, but I think it overstates the management analogy; for example, at one point the authors say she has been a "detached manager" and that she is now trying to get more into the day-to-day. The article casts a negative light on Clinton's management skills and while I am not a Clinton fan myself I think this charge is a bit unfair because the problems she is dealing with are quite common for about any candidate running a large campaign.

Large campaigns are never managed by the candidate -- that is why they have campaign managers. I suspect Huckabee may have done more managing but that is because his campaign was much smaller. From the article, “She hasn’t managed anything as complex as this before; that’s the problem with senators,” said James A. Thurber, a professor of government at American University who is an expert on presidential management. “She wasn’t as decisive as she should have been." From here the authors describe her management style as "insular," meaning only a few people had access to her. Nevermind the chaos that might occur if she let lots of people have access to her or if she spent much time on the day-to-day campaign stuff.

Her problems in managing the campaign are actually quite common and predictable (McCain last summer had lots of problems, as well). First, management is not a natural skill. If so many have trouble doing it even with MBAs and experience in business where bottom line results bring reality real fast, why would politicians be any better at it? I doubt her problems were one of access but simply not having any reliable systems in place to know what was going on in terms of low morale and sniping in the lower staff (something, again, lots of business executives don't do well either). Further, candidates are different from CEOs in that the candidate is the product and thus must spend most of her time doing PR and boning up on issues -- leaving not much time for management.

Actually, the real problem with her "decisiveness" is the same one many politicans suffer from: inability to replace loyal aides. This is a problem George W. Bush has had as well -- valuing loyalty more than competence or results. How do you reassign or fire someone who has loyally stood by you and someone you trust is for you? Again, this happens in business as well -- loyalists who hang on even as they are unfit to carry on the tasks needed, but is especially evident in politics. In another context think of the Kansas City Royals -- a couple of years ago they the worst franchise in the league and many fans were blaming the owner. Yet, it is the job of the general manager to improve the team and he was failing miserably, unable to stick to a strategy and unable to manage the organization. The owner was at fault because he would not replace the general manager -- it was not about the owner's management style nor did he need to get into the day-to-day. Candidates often hire managers they trust based on loyalty, not based on getting results.

So, while I think such backroom news on camapaigns can sometimes illustrate the character of the candidate (e.g., John Kerry's behavior in 2004 did not always show him in a good light in terms of character), it is a stretch to translate campaign management to decision making in the Oval Office. Quite frankly, most candidates don't have a clue. And if that is the criteria, then we better start soliciting people like Andy Grove, James Kilts, Robert Rubin . . . or Mitt Romney.

Learning How to Manage

Have been underwater the last couple of weeks due to illness in our family . . . but all is well again.

One of the reasons people like me get into education is the high of seeing people learn. Often the aha occurs after the course. Yesterday I talked to a "former" student from an executive development course I helped facilitate in January. This person could hardly hide his excitement at the success he was having as a manager (more accurately the success his department was having). Put simply his department was now delivering more effectively as measured by customer surveys and new projects were being diverted to his department because of their success.

And how was he doing it? By him doing less. Now he was empowering his subordinates to do the work by giving them focus and direction. He was using the tools he learned in the January course. Importantly, he was now feeling like he was helping develop his people rather than fearing he might get them fired.

I find this type of aha -- learning to manage -- quite fascinating. That's why I work with people interested in the challenge of managing.

Positioning

A postscript to my last entry on brands: The New York Times article on John McCain drew a strong rebuke from the candidate because the article attacked his brand identity. Specifically, McCain has crafted a perception of being a straight-talker and anti-special interests. The charges in the Times article intimated he was compromised on some issues involving lobbyists. Unfotunately for McCain the charges were based on gossip mostly. Still, he had to respond so that the news would not diminish his brand.

Now another business application in the political discourse and practice is positioning. Candidates like products do not exist in a vacuum and thus do not have absolute characteristics. Instead they are judged against other products. Candidates try to gain and hold a position in the minds of voters that will be winning. In the Republican race we saw a lot of positioning.

First, Mitt Romney spent millions to position himself as a traditional, Reagan Republican. This was a bit of challenge given that Romney record as governor of Massachussets was not purely conservative. Still, he chose this strategy wisely given that his strongest competitors in early 2007 were Rudy Guliani and John McCain--both not easily associated with conservative. Romney wanted to be a first mover into a position that was not only apprently vacant but often a winning one for republican voters. (Fred Thompson came in late to the race in part because he felt that a true conservative was missing in the race.)

On the Democratic side, Barrack Obama has been pretty successful in postioning himself as a candidate of change. This has been a consistent message to the point that he owns this position in the minds of voters (not just Democrats). Hillary Clinton has been less (but somewhat) successful in establishing the "experience" position. To the degree that she has been successful with this position it appears to be less appealing to the change message. Plus, she has tended to push this position less as consistent strategy than as reactive tactical plays to Obama.

Of course, positions are often only as good as the candidates (just the same as a product). Obama could be expert at establishing his postion but I doubt he could overcome as well a branded and financed candidate as Clinton unless he was also a very good candidate. I suspect that had Romney been as good (captivating a speaker) he could have won the Republican side (or to say another way--if he had been really Reaganesque he could have prevailed over McCain). But it still is important to be well postioned. Mike Huckabee is a great candidate like Obama, but he is not nearly as well positioned, as Huckabee is branded in a relatively small niche of evangelical voters.

Brands III

Candidates have brands, too. These brands can be doubled-edged swords. Hillary Clinton rode to her dominant position in the current presidential race on the strength of the “Clinton” brand. Her recent troubles, however, may also be attributed at least in part on the Clinton name. As with many products, candidates look for mass appeal, not just certain segments. A strong brand identity can trap a candidate or product into a niche. Toyota’s brand carries an image of great value at low cost, so when it wanted to compete in the market for luxury cars it didn’t use the Toyota brand, but created a new one, Lexus. Hillary Clinton has a harder time changing her brand (see her campaign materials such as the picture to the left and you will see the Clinton name absent). She is trying to create a more distinct “Hillary” brand.

John McCain will have same challenges. He has made his brand on being a Maverick and straight talker. This brand causes him problems with many of the people in his own party. In today’s New York Times, an article attacks McCain’s brand image by “reporting” on some potential relationships with lobbyists. McCain has come out strong to discredit these charges – even as he must work to expand the value proposition to a mass audience, he must also protect his brand.

Obama now seems to have an advantage in the branding race. Starting with the significant disadvantage of all new entrants—lack of name recognition, he has been able to leverage the one advantage the new entrant has: no already established brand expectations. He has been able to create his own brand identity from scratch and he smartly has done it by appealing to a broad consumer base. In politics there are many niche players; previously African American candidates tended to appeal to minority audiences. Obama has made a distinct effort to not do that. He has built a brand that speaks broadly and has mass appeal. It will be interesting to see if there is enough substance behind the image to hold through November.

In both business and politics a brand image is necessary but not sufficient. That is, people must know who you are and have expectations of what you will deliver (quality, price, luxury, etc.). But it has to be delivered as well, or the company, product, or candidate will be no more than a fad or flash in the pan.

Brands Continued

The republican brand from 1980 through 2006 was no doubt dominant. Bill Clinton, the only democratic president during this time won primarily by coopting some of the brand values of limited government. Clinton also benefited when George H.W. Bush defied his party’s brand identity by raising taxes, drawing the ire of his own consumers.

So what has happened to the republican brand since 1994? It has continually lost value to the point that the republicans lost their market share lead in the 2006 congressional elections. While taxes are still an issue in that people like to pay less, they are less of one as other issues like health care and the environment crowd them out (and some believe that we may have reached equilibrium on taxes).

Brands can get tired if the value proposition no longer holds or there is brand confusion. As much as the value proposition of cutting taxes got old and tired (see this recent article on taxes and the brand), the brand dilution was cemented by the product not living up to its acclaimed values. Many republican party consumers did not see the party living up to its value of limited government—in fact, the party is now viewed as being as eager to spend as its opponents. This recent article illustrates this. While reputation can carry a brand for some time, once the brand value is lost it is hard to get back. For example, some companies like Sprint have suffered recently from poor customer service—it will take great effort to turn this around.

Brands

It is a political year so a discussion of politics and business is appropriate. In the political discourse you will often hear business terms used. Among the most commonly used are brand and positioning. First, let’s explore the use of branding in politics.

Since our first president and political parties emerged, these parties have taken on brand identities. These identities are closely related to positioning—something I will discuss separately—but it is important to know that brands have value. Consider Apple, Corporation and the brand value it has built over the years. Because of its brand, people are willing to pay a premium for their MP3 players and other products. Companies make explicit efforts to build a brand that conveys perceived value to consumers. The band must be both known and be associated with something having value (i.e., cool, slick electronic devices).

In the case of the political parties they already have known brands (have name recognition). They must, however, work to develop perceived value or offer a value proposition that attracts a broad coalition of voters. The Republican Party over the last 50 years is a good example. In the early 1960s republicans were mostly indistinguishable to the Democratic Party. This is a bad place to be if you are clearly in a market share deficit as they were at that time (they were K-Mart to the Democrats Wal-Mart).

Today, many pundits refer to the Reagan revolution that was started by Goldwater in 1964 and continued in 1980 with Reagan’s election and then culminated in 1994 under Gingrich. Reagan helped create a new coalition of fiscal conservatives (sometimes called blue dog democrats), social conservatives, and libertarians and created a new brand that effectively differentiated the parties. The value proposition of the new Republican Party was limited government, strong defense to defeat communism, and tax cuts. This vaulted the part from a decidedly minority party to a majority party by 1994. Over this period republicans worked diligently to create a specific brand image. So what has happened since?

The Business of Politics

Another night of elections -- the Potomoc primaries tonight. If you like politics, this presidental primary season has been more interesting than usual with both parties holding competitive contests. I have always been interested in politics since I was in grade school and followed my first presidential election season: Nixon-Humphrey 40 years ago.

Well, politics borrows some of its terms from business (or vice versa). I will use this space to talk about two particular ones that critically important to both companies that conduct businesses and political campaigns.

One Young Soldier

Many people once they get to be my age think they have it in them to write a book--certainly we are old enough to have experienced something and studied something worth writing about. But most of us don't do it because writing a book takes long term commitment that must compete with the daily responsiblities (and distractions) that engulf us. But some people with regular jobs and families do find time to write a book.


Earlier this week, one of our long-time adjunct professors in the Helzberg School, Gary DeRigne, had a book signing for his first novel, One Young Soldier. Gary says that it is mosly a memoir of his experience serving in Vietnam. I was happy to receive a copy and happier still to have my proceeds for the book be designated to the Wounded Warriers charity. I guess it was appropriate that Gary who teaches corporate social responsbility for Rockhurst would think of such gesture.


One of the strengths of Rockhurst, especially in the Helzberg School, has long been its adjunct factuly. Gary is an IT professional in our community who not only uses his non-work time to write books, but teaches courses for Rockhurst. Adjuncts are a strength because they are real business professionals who can bring that practicing expertise into the classroom. Ironically, in working with adjuncts for over a decade I have found they are most interested in their role as teacher and anxious to learn how to be a better teacher and not simply a talking head expert.

Another thing I have learned from adjucts is that they get immense satisfaction in the classroom. In fact, some of our fulltime faculty started out as adjuncts. When I asked Gary how he likes writing, he said he likes it enough he wants to do more of it--seems this can get in your blood, too. Best of luck Gary with your next book.

Learning by Experience

I am reminded tonight of the vast Jesuit network of schools as I completed JebNet faculty survey. What was most interesting to me was the subject of the survey—experiential learning. Specifically, the survey queried respondents on their use and understanding of experiential learning methods in their classes. This is a subject especially dear to me as I think learning activities that engage students in actually doing the target skills is not only Jesuit but most effective.

Fortunately, there are lots of opportunities here at Rockhurst in the Helzberg School for hands-on learning that isn’t simply listening to the instructor or doing exercises out of the textbook. First, I have a colleague this semester using creative simulation for the senior capstone. It is not a computer simulation, but an activity that stretches students to develop strategies, work in teams, and present interpretations.

In fact, in the School of Management some other courses typically use simulations that force students act the role of managers—in, for example, the Introduction to Business and Marketing Policy courses.

Students who take Personal Selling don’t spend all semester just talking about selling concepts, but are required to actually sell in a simulated role play. Usually, they must sell to faculty who play the buyer—a tough buyer at that. Such "labratory" activities allow for self reflection and self assessment.

Finally, several of our faculty make use of projects that require students to interact with real people. Importantly, many of these projects are leveraged to help not-for-profit and community concerns. Right now our Executive Fellows students are working with Operation Breakthrough, providing critical services in marketing, IT and other functions. Importantly, the University supports such efforts with our Center for Service Learning.

And these experiential activities are quire Jesuit and consistent with the notion of education of the whole person. That is, it is not only what you know but what you value (place importance on) and believe (how you relate to things) that makes learning whole . . . best done through experiential activity.

The New Year

While the new year started three weeks ago, today feels like the real start of the new year--the first day of classes. One of the reasons I enjoy working in the Helzberg School at Rockhurst is the diversity of programs and students we have. While today is officially the first day of class for our traditional undergraduate and MBA programs, we have other programs that have already begun. For instance, our Executive Fellows MBA students started back on January 4th and 5th and met again last Saturday. The Helzberg School also offers a DO-MBA (specialized program for studying doctors) -- they had classes on January 15 and again Tuesday of this week.

And most of our faculty teach in more than one program. Some of those instructors you have for an undergraduate class likely also teach in one of these graduate programs, giving them access to not only students with different experiences but to companies in this regional area. This diversity of experience is good for our students, but is just as good for our faculty. This semester I will teach a clas of mostly freshmen (and Intro to Business course) and a course of mostly graduating MBA students taking thier final class. I look forward to getting started for good -- today.

The Dish

The problem with management professors and any student of management is they are constantly intrigued by human interaction; more specifically, what gets people to take action and relegate their individual interests secondary to some bigger end. So, for instance, we never just enjoy a movie but look for examples of leadership or management. This past weekend I had the pleasure to see “The Dish,” a movie that somehow makes a story of very mundane part of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

The story, briefly, shows a small group of men who operate the world’s largest satellite dish in a rural, Australian town. The plot is quite simple, covering the 3-4 days from launch of Apollo 11 to the moon landing on July 20, 1969. This small group of men are put in the “spotlight” because NASA will rely on them for television transmission of the men walking on the moon. For this event, NASA has sent the 3-man operation a NASA representative to work with them to make sure of coordination. The film’s director did a fabulous job of making this rather mundane plot a funny story, while still giving us insight into people through the characters.

The interesting part for me was the organization of the group, which was impacted by the addition of the person from NASA. This created conflict and in the case of one of the members an improper belief. He saw the NASA person usurping their authority and “taking over” their work. How the director of the Dish facility (played by Sam Neill) handled this conflict and intervened was quite exemplary.

Now I need to watch the movie several more times—that’s the problem.

A New Year

One of the great things about being a father (and teacher) is how much my children teach me. A couple of weeks ago my daughter told me she was putting together a reading list for 2008. She and some friends (who also are fiction writers) are challenging themselves to read 100 books--at least 75 of them literature and fiction.



I thought "Wow, what a neat idea!" I thought I would do a reading list as well and quickly realized a couple of things. First, making a list takes time -- I was up late until 2 a.m. the other night working on a list and got to about 18 books. It reminded me of my brother several years ago coming up with his top 300 movies, ranked in oder. I tried it and simply coming up with 300 movies was nearly impossible, let alone ranking them. Second, I realized 100 books is a book every 3-4 days -- impossible.



Oh, to be young and able to dream big things. Her list (at 94 books a few days ago) includes some of my favorites like Brave new World and Apollo 13. It also includes a lot of Shakespeare and literature that we often would not read on a whim. The beauty of this exercise is that she picks her own list based on interests and needs. I believe people know what they need to learn more than anyone else.



So I have decided to make my own list with--with my own rules. I have mostly non-fiction and am looking at 25 books. Some are books I would have read anyway (business books), but most are ones I would like to read but never have time to. Also, I am picking representative ones from all decades starting in the 1920s. I am still looking for one in the 1980s. I still have a few to add -- I will leave this open as new leads come available.

Time to get reading. My daughter told me this morning she has already started her first book, Ella Minnow Pea, -- promptly at midnight.