Staying Calm I am watching Crimson Tide tonight, that great submarine movie about a nuclear launch crisis in the Pacific. It pits Gene Hackman, the Captain against Denzel Washington, the XO, in a face-to-face confrontation caused by a contrived partial communications situation. The set-up is whether a pre-emptive nuclear launch to gain a tactical warfare advantage is worth launching nuclear weapons in an unclear situation where there may have been an Emergency Action Message (EAM)…
Riding with Polo One of my favorite branding stories involves the Ralph Lauren Polo brand. In early 2009, I was Chairman and CEO of a company called Africa Israeli, USA. It was the U.S. subsidiary of the Israeli parent of the same name, a company I liken to the General Electric of Israel because it was big and diversified. However, instead of washing machines and jet turbines, Africa Israeli had gone down a path of…
B2B2B2B Back in late 1999, my buddy Bruce, who was a partner with me at Bankers Trust for many years, introduced me to two guys from Madison Avenue. One (Sam) he had known as a family friend for years and the other was his partner (Terry) for years. We thought of it as two Wall Street guys meet two Mad Men. Bruce and I had run our course with Bankers Trust, which sold to Deutsche…
Calling in the Cavalry When I decided to move out here to San Diego about two years ago, I spoke with Kim and we decided to just put a stake in the ground. I said we should move out at the end of 2019, which meant we should extend our lease on our apartment in New York for only eight months instead of twelve months. When I spoke to the rental company I expected some…
The Kabuki of Kabuki I have spent a fair bit of time in Japan (mostly “Blade Runner” Tokyo and a little bit of Kyoto) and I am very fond of the visual imagery of Kabuki theater, but I have never seen a live Kabuki performance, only a short depiction on TV. When I think of Kabuki, I think of guys stomping around for effect in elaborate robes and with dramatic, exaggerated make-up. Kabuki does not…
A Picture Worth a Thousand Memories I have had an active policy on this blog of NOT using photographs to compliment the stories. I have often written stories in which I embed photographs and made the stories look and feel like magazine articles. Some people ask for photos and I certainly understand the value of a visual aide, but I use this blog to force myself to write and write and write. As I formulated…
Always Be Closing The movie Glengarry Glen Ross is a classic and its probably the best sales movie ever made. Some throw that accolade to Boiler Room, The Pursuit of Happyness or The Wolf of Wall Street. Others think about non-financial selling like fracking contracts in Promised Land, aluminum siding in Tin Men (my choice for runner-up sales movie),or the other classic “Everyman” salesman of Death of a Salesman. But the combination of the GGR…
The Unmasking of America As I sit here on a Friday morning, waiting to launch forth in my car dragging my motorcycle trailer to Utah to gather with twenty or so pals to hang out at a lovely western lodge as we ride the canyons, I am wondering how the CDC revelation that we vaccinated people of the world no longer must wear masks outside and inside (so long as we are not in a…
That Old Black Magic Have I mentioned that I’m retired? That is supposed to mean that if I have anything to worry about, its about whether my deck renovation is on time and in budget or my new plants are getting enough or too much water. But despite being retired, I have an urge to stay engaged in the business activity in which I spent my productive years. I am not entirely sure why that…
A Sunday Lecture It’s almost 10am on Sunday and I am killing time before I am supposed to give a guest lecture in a course being given at the University of San Diego graduate business program. The Sunday morning time is a little unusual, but in these days of virtual education and even more so in graduate business education, there are more and more courses that are given on weekends and since Sunday is half…