Miracle

The greatest miracles of my life are the birth of my four children -- and I saw all of those first hand. But the next greatest one happened 30 years ago today and is called the Miracle on Ice. I'm not a big hockey fan, but that Olympic event where a U.S. team of very young amateurs beat the best team in the world still ranks as the greatest sports event in my lifetime. Read this article from Joe Posnanski on interesting facts from this event (like most everyone saw it on tape delay broadcast). While I have seen the movie about this event (several times) and read about it in some detail, I never saw the whole game itself as I was a college student at the time and involved in some social activity that night (or more likely I was studying).

This anniversary is especially interesting as I compare it to what is currently happening to Toyota and their recall problems and what has been happening for some time at Microsoft. You see these two iconic companies who have amassed fat cash accounts as a result of their dominance in the car and computer markets are what the Soviet hockey team was in 1980. That team had been nearly unbeatable from the mid-1960s to the 1980s -- even Microsoft would have envied the "monopoly" the Soviets enjoyed in the sport (and by 1980 they had proven they could easily beat any NHL all-star team).

But how the mighty fall. Even with $24 billion in cash reserves Toyota is facing a crisis in confidence in their cars that could knock them down a notch. Microsoft has been trying for a decade to figure out what to do next; mostly they have been losing good talent to companies like Google who have a steep growth curve (always these are the companies that are most fun to work at) and a growing stock price. Complacency is the enemy of those that stand at the top and they are very susceptible to fall.

As brillant as the U.S. team strategy was and as talented the young players were, they had no business beating the Soviets. But every Goliath is ripe to be slain by a David in part because that giant loses focus, gets complacent, starts believing its own press, and stops innovating and staying hungry go get better. As perfect as the U.S. team was that Olympic period, it was the Soviets who were ripe to be beat.

But I still want to watch the real game all the way through.

Boulevard Beer

Last week the owner of our local Boulevard Brewery spoke to our executive class. Interesting story -- typical of entreprenurs and we have many in K.C. Timely also, as they Boulevard has been in the news for their expansion into St. Louis, right into the belly of the beast beer empires (or former beer empires). Over 20 years McDonald has built the company to be one of the largest micro breweries in the nation (8th I believe is what he said), employing dozens of local people. What caught my interest was Boulevard's foray into glass recycling and the start of their business Ripple Glass.

Although Boulevard prefers to sell draft beer, they sell a lot of bottled beer; McDonald was concerned about the byproduct of sales -- empty glass. He did his research, finding out that glass was better when recycled separte from other trash -- when combined inefficiencies cause only a fraction of the glass to be able to be recycled as opposed to being dumped in the landfill. McDonld's concern and interest is genuine, enough to invest his time and money in the Ripple Glass venture.

But here is what is interesting -- he sees the venture (which needs to scale up significantly to create any profit) as helping him sell more beer. And this is a great lesson for corporate social responsiblity. Business people like McDonald can give back in important social ways by trying to make their business better. Though McDonald is not a Rockhurst alum, but he fits well with the Jesuit tradition of service to others and solid business ethics.