A New Year

Tomorrow officially kicks off the new year for much of our Rockhurst community (though some of our MBA students started over a week ago). The Massachusetts senate race has caught my attention because of how it reinforces the paradox of power and how having a lot of it creates the conditions that surely leads to losing it.

Scott Brown (a republican) is the ultimate underdog trying to win a statewide senate seat in a state that voted for Obama by a margin of 26 points. He is also trying to win the seat held by Ted Kennedy for 47 years (and by Teddy's older brother for several years before that). 85% of the MA state legislature is held by democrats. And less than two months ago, Brown's democratic opponent held about a 30 point lead in this race. Yet, by the end the day it is very possible Brown will be elected and that democrats all over the country will feel very vulnerable in the 2010 elections. Of course, this has happened many times before (though some are still saying a Brown win is the biggest political upset in half a century and if you like underdogs this is a very interesting race).

Several years ago, an article titled "Why bad things happened to good companies" detailed the inevitable decline of once great companies. Three years ago business magazines were hailing the dominance of Toyota Motors -- see this NY Times feature. A few years before that Dell was hailed as having an impregnable position in the computer industry. Today neither of these companies are doing so well.

Several reasons for this. 1) The world changes. What resonated with people no longer does. Their priorities and tastes changes; it is easy for the one in power to not recognize that change. 2) The competition becomes better. The genius of markets is that they spawn innovation and innovation leads to better mousetraps and better ways to make and distribute the mousetraps. 3) Entrenched habits. Entropy is natural and when successful people let up and get caught in routines making them less likely to notice needed change. 4) Hubris. They fall victim to their own invincibility, which can lead to colossal mistakes of judgment.

About a year after the ascension of Democrats to political power these symptoms appear. In fact, companies and parties are more likely to be sharp and on their game when there is a strong competitor in their market. The last 3 years the republicans have been a very weak competitor -- all to the detriment of the Democrats. Their one bright hope: if the republicans are able to exploit the current vulnerability, they will surely fumble it away just as they did earlier in this decade.

Coach Iubelt

For my Christmas holiday I spent a week in Alabama at my in-laws-- where it was also cold. On the way back, we stopped by my wife's friends who live in Paducah, Kentucky. George Iubelt spent most of his life at Southern Illinois University and was an assistant coach for SIU when my wife's father was head coach in the 1970s. We had a nice visit with George and his wife, B.J. -- I found his stories fascinating.

First, he is a W.W.II vet; he was a radioman for fifty B-24 missions in 1944-45. Many servicemen died flying these missions. Stationed in Italy, he recounted his first mission where his plane was the only one out the squadron that made it back safely (1 out of 7 planes). He said he was fortunate to be able to get on a good crew. As part of my work I think about how important teams are, but in George's case a good crew meant the difference between living and dying.

As a basketball coach, George lived in an era where coach's did not have the profile (or high salaries) they have today. Yet, he had a tremendous impact on the lives of some of those students. When he was coaching, SIU was able to recruit a lot of black athletes from the South who were still not always welcome by the large southern universities. He and my wife's dad recurited many a player from Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi -- some became pros such as Walt Frazier, Mike Glen, and Joe C. Merriwether (all from the South).

At times when players were disciplined, George could hold their meal card from them. He found out years later when one of the players named George's wife as the most important person at the University, B.J. was undermining her own husband's discipline by providing these same players a meal. In fact, George worried that some of the kindness shown these players might show up as an NCAA violation. Coaches like George changed people's lives.

George was a little down in the back when we visited and both of them are feeling the effects of age. But they were delightful hosts and it might have been the best hour I spent all vacation.