Who's the Best? And Other Collected Thoughts

Admittedly, Americans are a competitive breed. From trying to outdo the Joneses to hard charging on the athletic field, few pursuits are greeted with more enthusiasm than trying to be the best. CEOs of large companies are no different: Managing a global enterprise is among the most challenging of all activities, and they like to try to outdo each other. So the question comes down to this: How do we judge who is the best? There is no simple measurement, after all, and timing and luck play a big part. Scoring high on traditional metrics does not guarantee you are the best, as various political, ethical, and environmental issues may also play an important role in the outcome. And then there is the concept of teamwork, which certainly factors into success. In the military sphere, rarely do generals take credit for winning wars, although we can’t very well win without their leadership. So we chatted up an old friend, Cab Woodward, former vice chairman of ITT, and a board member of Newell Rubbermaid, CVS, and Footstar. In his great and impressive career, we asked, who did he feel was the greatest CEO ever? He responded without hesitation: Tom Murphy and Dan Burke (of Capital Cities/ABC fame), interestingly, finding advantage in two business geniuses over one. And then Woodward added, “or John McGillicuddy (of Manufacturers Hanover) and then everyone else.” Not faint praise coming from this titan, and also, a dance card that Warren Buffett would heartily endorse.

Good Advice
Several years ago, I spent a day in Santa Monica talking to Michael Milken about business opportunities in the field of training, education, and healthcare in what eventually became his vehicle for developing all of these opportunities into a major enterprise, Knowledge Universe. During our engaging discussion, he received a phone call, obviously from a close friend, and began asking after the caller’s health and business affairs. The friend had enjoyed immense success, been wonderfully received by kings, politicos, and oil barons. But he was wondering what was next, so Milken offered some advice to his listener along the lines of, “Ken, I think you should stick with your idea of retiring after your illustrious career, and I also think you should consider getting involved in a significant charity that has meaning for you and where you can use your enormous talents to good effect.”

The year was 1998. The caller was Ken Lay.

Conflicts of Interest or Interesting Conflicts

For a number of years I was a protégé and successor to Caspar Weinberger, former Secretary of Defense, at the time he was publisher and then chairman of Forbes magazine. He related a story one day about Adnan Khashoggi, the wealthy Saudi entrepreneur and arms trader. Khashoggi had Weinberger in his offices to talk about a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense. When Weinberger replied that anything done directly to favor him would be a conflict of interest, Khashoggi looked puzzled and asked what that meant. Weinberger, a Harvard Law grad, replied with a crisp, clear definition of a conflict of interest, and Khashoggi furrowed his brow and replied, “In that case, I think a conflict of interest is something that I have no interest in.”

This brought to mind the question of whether service on certain boards might be in conflict with Directorship’s mandate to help illuminate the boardroom to its readers. The boardroom, as all of our readers need no reminder, is not a public forum but a place that shares the characteristics of a “war room” in terms of confidentiality, deliberativeness, and import. So my experience, I believe, tends to enliven and broaden the scope of our magazine, and prevents us from the kind of reporting that tends to portray a boardroom as a black hole in which ideas routinely go in but rarely come out. So as long as you find it illuminating or stimulating, we will continue to write about the boardroom from a board member’s perspective, and we hope you will continue to share your own insights with us. For the record, I am a board member of TheStreet.com and Sapient.

Your thoughts? jc@directorship.com