David Schmittlein, John C Head III Dean

Stand and Deliver

In the cellars of the night, when the mind starts moving around old trunks of bad times, the pain of this and the shame of that, the memory of a small boldness is a hand to hold.
     - John Leonard

The first speaker in MIT Sloan’s Dean’s Innovative Leader Series on my watch was Bruce Gordon, and it was a real honor to introduce him. Bruce has been a successful business person; but also, in his time as head of the NAACP, he showed real vision and courage, pursuing great change at significant risk. It is a little bit old-fashioned to describe him this way, though. Current -- and in truth, accurate -- management knowledge emphasizes the idea of distributed leadership, recognizing that the person at the top of any organization chart will necessarily be incomplete as a leader, and that successful firms encourage leadership throughout the organization.

In contrast, earlier conceptions of leadership were variants on the “great person” theory. Attract a great leader and he/she will, through charisma and genius, single-handedly make the whole organization successful. The search was on for the ingredients making up this godlike individual. Breathless biographies and, especially, autobiographies, fueled the image of a solitary figure at the helm, steering the ship into safe and productive waters. In lazier moment of journalism and research this outdated view still lives.

Yet, as we throw out the bathwater of Zeus as CEO, there’s still a baby here in the private leadership moment. Encouraging and empowering managers to see what isn’t, and what is better, and what is difficult but perhaps possible: I am not sure we can have too much of these tales.

When I think of individual leadership moments, my friend Ira comes to mind. Ira runs a profitable private company that is a leader in his industry. Strong internally generated growth, a visible and respected brand, and a company oriented toward emerging opportunities. Ira is very much the leader, the driver of the firm’s commitment to success. He knows the business inside out, and is often asked by the media to share his expertise regarding trends in his industry.

But this is not the most impressive, or fundamental, thing about Ira. His firm operates in the security business. That’s security as in protection, rather than securities. Years ago he bucked the industry norm and decided his firm would no longer have its employees carry firearms. He also committed his firm to a living wage for all employees and a package of employee benefits unusual in this sector. He built the foundation of the business around a set of core values, and set about not just pursuing, but creating, segments of the market that are willing to pay for comprehensive, quality services rather than commodity services. And he has made it work, for his customers, his employees, and his community. Indeed it is clear that his firm’s success has stemmed from his taking the path less chosen.

But this is not the most impressive, or fundamental, thing about Ira. Ira also cares deeply about the world in which his enterprise operates. His philanthropy has been broad and deep, and devoted to education and tolerance. Both as visible progenitor and quiet enabler, he has made a real difference in multiple communities.

But this is still, I think, not the most impressive, or fundamental, thing about Ira. In 1957 in Little Rock, Arkansas, a federal judge ordered the forced desegregation of Central High School, producing a flash point of hatred and bigotry. Nine terrified African American students were admitted to the school, over the opposition of the white students, the faculty, the administration, the governor, and the state police. NBC sent its young national reporter, John Chancellor, to cover the story.  At the same time, a youngster, 16 years old, from another school in the area, the editor of his school’s yearbook, had access to the presses inside Central High. He was a friend of one of the nine students. His own values and experiences led him to feel that the world had to know what was happening. So, at great personal risk, he sought out John Chancellor and became his informer. Mr. Chancellor built his reputation as a network newsperson on an extraordinary set of reports from the site, repeatedly revealing the discussions taking place inside the school in support of segregation. His informant was Ira Lipman. When I think of the success of his firm, Guardsmark, it seems ridiculous to divorce it from this personal element -- the internal compass, the willingness to question, the ability to see what can be better, and bravery to make it so.

The rest of us did not live in Little Rock in 1957 with this opportunity for leadership to be fused, or at least revealed. But how many of us would have seen what could really be different, could really be better, at great risk, and choose to be the person making it so? More important, when you know what someone like Ira did, does it change you?  I hope and believe it changed me.

Vision and courage. There is a role for these in the modern organization. Not just at the top, indeed, but throughout. It is still worth encouraging. That’s why we have the Dean’s Innovative Leader Series.   That’s why I wanted to write about Ira. We may not be able to instill morals. But in a great school of management we can do more than impart knowledge. The stories of Bruce, and Ira, show the potential of visionary leadership. They remind that bravery is possible, and necessary. They embolden.

Worthy music:

• Tracy Chapman: "Change"
• Tom Petty: "I Won’t Back Down"

Alchemy

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate
First one said “Oh my, it’s getting late!”
Second one said “There are witches in the air.”
Third one said “Well we don’t care.”
Fourth one said “Get ready for some fun.”
Fifth one said “Let’s run and run!”
Oooh-oooh went the wind and out went the light;
Five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.
    - Traditional

Halloween and Thanksgiving are special holidays — the twin towers of autumn, my favorite season.  In truth, Halloween has lost a bit of magic in the recent past as its commercial potential has been fully realized; but Thanksgiving remains a great holiday, and something nice about America.  Food, football, family, and friendship among strangers.  Its origins and often its current celebrations remind that America can still be a place where people of different backgrounds come together and share.  It also challenges us to imagine whether that coming together is just for a day.  After all, the European settlers and native Americans got along not particularly well before, or after, that first Thanksgiving.

But this note is not about the Pilgrims or Squanto.  It’s about food.  Pumpkin pie.  Apple pie.  Pecan pie.  Any kind of pie, really.   Mashed potatoes.  Mashed rutabagas.  Mashed Turnips.  Mashed Cape Cod cranberries.  Mashed together or separately.  Fried onions.  Fried leeks.  Green bean casserole.   With fried onions.  Or fried leeks.   And Turkey — the great American fowl.  Benjamin Franklin couldn’t convince his fellow founding fathers to name it the national bird, but it’s got a lot to recommend it.  It makes a friendly sound, for starters.  (This is not a political column, though.)  It tastes great.  And what other bird can you sketch just by tracing your outstretched hand?   As my friend Joel would say, “How great is that?”

There are people who moan about the “holiday of excess,” but surely for just one day it’s permissible to celebrate bounty.  Maybe if more people had a good celebration of Thanksgiving, the whole grain light balsamic vinaigrette would be more refreshing the rest of the week….

This year has been a Thanksgiving bonus for me, enjoying it with first year MBA students, then again with second year MBAs, then with extended family, gathering in Washington D.C.  But in spite of the triple celebration — and they were three great experiences — one thing I especially like about Thanksgiving wasn’t part of the holiday this year: the cooking and baking.  I am the Thanksgiving chef when we “do” Thanksgiving at home, and creating the gorgeous landscape of bounty, for loved ones, out of the simplest, most homely ingredients, is enormously satisfying.  Onions, potatoes and beans; butter, flour, sugar and pumpkin.  Straw spun into gold.  That’s the alchemy of Thanksgiving, and worthy of old Rumpelstiltskin’s shuttle  running at the spinning wheel.  Looking at the table’s assortment of creations, the steam rising to reveal the colors green and gold, white and red,  I would stand, exhausted, and think “I created this; for you.”

What I love about Thanksgiving is also what I love about a great university.  In how many other places can you really practice alchemy?  A student and professor sit in a quiet coffee lounge and strike a spark, out of thin air, that lasts a lifetime.  A researcher connects ten years of anecdotes to improve the sourcing of products worldwide.  An executive describes experiences in a classroom of peers and creates the confidence to take the risks his organization desperately needs.  All made out of — what?  Passion and curiosity.  Rigor and relevance.  A great university isn’t about tallying facts or memorizing methods.  It’s about creating a small space where someone — student or researcher, alone or together — can create something out of the most humble of ingredients.  And, having done it once, know they can spin gold from straw again.

I hope readers had a slice of alchemy this Thanksgiving season.

   
Postlude:

“The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open mind.”  Malcolm Forbes

Worthy Music:

• Kornog, “The Shuttle Rins,” Ar Seizh Avel

Skipping Stones

One lives in the hope of becoming a memory.
- Antonio Porchia, "Voces"

I am a pretty bad dinner party host.  Spouse Barb and I keep at it, in a sort of head-down-against-the-wind fashion, but if we are better at it for the practice I doubt it’s obvious to our guests.  Deciding at the last minute to eat outside rather than in, or the wine is upstairs when it should be downstairs, or the showpiece dessert of red (strawberries), white (ginger cream cheese), and blue (blueberries) on puff pastry takes an hour to assemble “at the last minute”.  Still, afterward we are glad we did it, and our friends show their love by returning despite the festival of disarray and stress.

It’s different in the mature films of Woody Allen.  Dinner on the lawn at sunset in “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy.”  Dinner in a New York apartment in “Hannah and Her Sisters.”  Beautiful portrayals of the feast as a gathering of the three human needs: to eat, to understand and be understood, and to love and be loved.

Around 1980 I held my first dinner gathering as a “professional,” with friends David and Karen in a Philadelphia apartment.  Too much pasta, shrimp turned into pencil erasers, and some unfortunate vegetable thrown into the mix.  But it was a brief moment of embarrassment and anyway a sidebar to the path of academic success I was paving.  About the same time I had my first journal article published.  Quite apart from the professional success that it signaled, the publication felt like a sliver of immortality.  With luck, those thoughts and findings would exist for decades, perhaps centuries, in some library, for some future generation to consider, if only on rare occasion.

The paper most likely to warrant that immortality came later, and was written jointly with friends Richard and Don.  While Don was justly famous, for Richard and me that particular article, even at the time, was more of a signature contribution.  For my part, it was a high point in a straight line of determined success; one leap of a stone skipping on a pond, straight and far.  For Richard, it seemed to me, it was more a wonderful experience in one setting, from which he would venture on to other settings and pursue other experiences.

I don’t recall what led me to Richard’s house in Connecticut on an afternoon many years ago.  Until that day I felt we were quite similar: two successful assistant professors good at applied statistics.  Then I saw him at play with his son, and his thoughtfulness about what was interesting, and important.  As the afternoon wore on and friends gathered, the warmth and gentility of the host led those smart, driven people into the magic of a Woody Allen dinner.  I don’t recall the food but it was good, and it was better because we ate it together.  There was a large table.  The light was low, the ceilings were high.  The conversation rose and fell, and flickered like the candlelight on the walls.  Then we had to go home, and I recall thinking “What happened here?”

It took years to realize that it wasn’t the grand old house or the food or the candles that made the magic.  It was the host.  So now, when we entertain, we try to remember to work on the host.  And we try to let our eyes turn to the waves.  Our eyes naturally follow the stone as it skips across the water, and we watch until it is captured.  But the waves that each touchpoint makes, as they radiate and reverberate, are what last.  It’s good to notice the waves.  And to think about them as we launch the stone.

In our own community, so many stones flying and touching.  But the waves too.  The shy “are you the new dean” in the coffee line; Will holding on to a handshake; and, when mentioning this school, Jeremy’s 300 watt smile, Tanguy’s voice dropping an octave, Judy’s eyes flashing, and Steve’s hands gripping the future.  I’ll try to remember that I’m making them too. 

Worthy music:

• Fairport Convention, “Come All Ye” (Liege and Lief)
• Ralph Vaughan Williams, “Linden Lea”
• Duke Ellington, “The Single Petal of a Rose”

First Impressions

“I’ve flown to the moon, but the most comfortable flight I’ve ever had was on Eos.”
- U.S. astronaut Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr., lunar module pilot for Apollo 11, the first lunar landing.

The first time I flew Eos Airlines was in March 2007.  An important morning meeting in Cambridge, United Kingdom, and certain commitments in Philadelphia the day before, mandated taking a car service to JFK airport, and then Eos Flight #2 to Stansted Airport.  Stansted is north of London, the direction toward Cambridge, and the morning arrival would allow making the meeting, with a little time to spare.
March 16 was an unusual weather day in the eastern U.S.; ice and sleet from mid-morning on.  The car from Philadelphia nearly had to turn back, but we did finally make it to JFK.  The news there was bad — while the airport was not closed, falling ice preventing all flights from departing.  The head of Eos flight ops came to the passengers waiting in the Emirates lounge and explained the situation in person, passenger by passenger.  (Note: when you do need to wait for a flight, Emirates lounge in JFK is about as nice a place to do that as may be found…)  He said we’d have a hotel room if plan B became necessary, but if we were collectively willing to hang in there with them, for what might be hours, they’d like to take a chance for the flight to go if a weather window opened up.  We all said we would.  One of the firm’s senior executives also came around to all the customers, as did the two pilots.  They only stepped away to take needed phone calls and then returned to wait with us.

Eventually, we all agreed to board, leave the gate, and have the plane de-iced, on spec, in continued hopes for such a window to open.  De-icing took a long time (there was lots of ice) and then we waited some more.  I said to myself, “Nice marks for effort, but now it’s hotel time…and my absence from the meeting tomorrow.”

The pilot announced we would try to take off, and had gotten clearance to the runway, and the plane plodded sluggishly through the snow.  We taxied to position #1 for departure, and the pilot came on again: the ground crew would drive out in a truck to inspect the wings from the underside, and he himself would inspect them from the windows topside.  As 10 minutes passed I thought “This is nuts — the planes waiting behind us have to be screaming at the tower about the delay, especially since the weather-window for departure is likely to close.”

Then finally all was ready and we turned onto the runway, and I understood why people fly this airline.

We were alone.

I mean, nothing was moving at JFK aside from us. 

As we roared down the runway of that huge, still, airport, I felt an exhilaration as never before in thirty years of flying.

Looking at the other passengers to register their astonishment I found instead, “Yeah, this is Eos, what did you expect?”

To the best of my knowledge, only one flight got out of JFK that evening: Eos Flight #2.

The flight arrived about an hour and a half late and I arrived at the meeting just about on time.  The 48 passengers on that plane were taken where they needed to be.   They were valued and respected as individuals, and for what they need to accomplish by traveling.

So why do people fly Eos?  Because you never know when it will be March 16.  And when it is March 16, you can either give up and go home, or you can do whatever it takes to sit, all by yourself, at the end of a runway.  And take off.

What’s the worst thing about Eos?  It’s hard to show people credibly what will happen on the March 16ths.  The lie-flat beds and the great food and wine and the handholding at check-in are easy to show on a website but are only a pale reflection of, and signal for, what we really care about: the commitment and competence of the airline’s staff and leadership. I, however, had the good fortune to see these qualities firsthand in the ways they matter most.  Because most of us don’t fly for the food.  What we value most is getting there, on time and safely, and being treated as humans.  If only some airline could deliver that.  In my experience one does.

I have thought about Eos a lot during my first two weeks as Dean of MIT Sloan.  My friend, Brian Kelly, rightly reminded me that there’s no second chance to make a first impression.  So I have tried to do my very best, in initial speeches, and meetings, and messages.  And people have been wonderfully responsive — thank you.

But first impressions go in both directions.  And my first impressions of MIT Sloan are many — too numerous for one little note like this.  But the recurring image from those MIT Sloan first impressions is that runway at JFK, and exhilaration.  Because what I have found at MIT Sloan are alumni, and faculty, and staff, and students, that are beyond competent.  Beyond caring.  And beyond committed.  The kind of organization that we have come no longer to expect.  But sometimes, with luck, we find, and cherish, and nourish as best we can.

Worthy music

Faithless, “To All New Arrivals” was in-flight music on Eos #2.  I’m not a big fan of electronic/dance but this is very good.  The title refers to children, and the music appeals especially to those who have them; but “Bombs,” “Spiders, Crocodiles and Kryptonite,” and most of all the title track are worthy listening for anyone. Check it out on YouTube >>

Before the Red Sox Were A Nation

Cras amet qui numquam amavit
Quique amavit cras amet
- John Fowles, The Magus

As all members of Red Sox Nation know, Coco Crisp secured his place in the nation’s history with a deft and determined catch, in deepest center field, to produce the final out in ALCS game 7 and deliver the American League pennant to Boston for 2007.  I watched that play from the lobby lounge of the apartment building near MIT Sloan where I live, temporarily, this fall, in the companionship of several MIT Sloanies. (“Hi everyone!”)  (My family will join me in Boston in December.)  Mr. Crisp had been taken out of the batting lineup for games 6 and 7 and was only playing in that final inning as a defensive replacement, which made his catch an especially satisfying affirmation.  I assumed the cheers of my co-viewers related both to the Red Sox victory and to Mr. Crisp’s redemption, but then learned I had missed the main joy — as they informed me, Coco lives in that building.

My two favorite books are Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations and John Fowles’ The Magus.  I sometimes wish they weren’t, and that I could claim something more erudite (Joyce; Proust) or more au courant, or simply less old-fashioned, or less controversial.  But there you have it.  I read the former when I was 20, and the latter when I was 26; in each case breathlessly pursuing the protagonist to the book’s end.  It wasn’t until a re-reading in my 40’s that I realized they are actually the same book.  Young man in pursuit of…everything, learning by hard experience what is worth pursuing.  But what really makes the books the same is the trick used to humiliate the reader.  At least, humiliate those many readers who succumbed to the same dream of great personal expectations, at all cost.  “Go, Pip, go!”  And Nick, I mean, who could really blame him?  A young man has to make his way in the world after all, and experience is worth having, isn’t it?  When the author lowers the boom, it comes down equally on the protagonist and on the reader who supported him.  So when Dickens writes what we know to be untrue:  “‘Which dear old Pip, old chap,’ said Joe, ‘you and me was ever friends,’” the accusation is aimed not only at Pip, whose narrow self-interest has rejected Joe’s friendship, but at the reader who had been rooting for Pip as if Dickens were Horatio Alger, Jr.

I suggested recently that my kids might want to consider re-reading a particularly thoughtful and enjoyable book someday, and they responded “Why would I want to do that?  I already know the story?”  I didn’t do a very good job suggesting that there may be insights that a more leisurely reading would allow, once we didn’t need to know how it would “all turn out”.  But beyond that I was thinking about how reading lets us see ourselves in a new light.  Re-reading these two books let me see how I had changed — the contrast with my earlier reactions to the text, which were still easy to retrieve.

This 2007 Red Sox playoff seems like a re-reading.  Forty years ago, at age 12, I spent the summer glued to my Magnavox transistor radio as the Impossible Dream unfolded.  The amazing birth of a competent 1967 team after years of ineptness (leaving aside Yastrzemski).  The photo-finish to the season, and improbably the American League pennant.  And then the crucible of the World Series.  Going for the glory.  And the tragedy of game 7.  The dream crushed; how could that happen?  I rooted against the Cardinals for years, just out of spite.

And now, however 2007 turns out (I write this after World Series game 2; the Red Sox up 2-0), it has offered a chance to look again at 1967.  From this point the glory seems as much to have been in the pursuit as in the achievement.  I have thought about an aging ex-Yankee, Elston Howard, playing catcher on aching knees.  I have thought about a young star whose career, and perhaps life, was cut short in a moment’s errant pitch (Conigliaro) and who became an inspiration — and a prompt for greater safety in the game.  And I have considered Jim Lonborg (right).  Gentleman Jim.  The Cy Young award winning pitcher whose win on the last day of the season gave the Sox the pennant.  Who, four days later, beat the heavily favored Cardinals in World Series game 1.  Who beat them again in game 5.    And after all this, going into World Series final game 7, he was asked to carry the Red Sox on his shoulder one last time, and pitch on 2 days rest.  He had to know that despite all he had done in this amazing season, this one game would be what most people remember.  He had to know that history has not been kind to someone trying such a feat on just 2 days rest.  And he did it anyway.  And yes, his arm gave out; and the Red Sox lost 7-2.

I do hope the Red Sox win this year.  But it is a lot more fun, and in a way more rewarding, “reading” this season not as Pip, or Nick.  It’s not so much about the destination as the ride.  And, as a bonus, I finally get to enjoy the 1967 ride.  And I wonder if, in years to come, those in the lobby lounge on Third Street may be more likely to recall Coco Crisp’s last out in the ALCS, than even the World Series.

Postscript
We rent a house in Nantucket for a summer vacation each year, and our favorite pizza place is Sophie T’s.  The pizza is good but that’s not the reason I go there.  On our first visit as we looked at the few Red Sox posters on the wall with the kids, spouse Barb — a Cincinnati Reds fan — said, “I know these guys, but who’s that one?”, and I answered “That’s Jim Lonborg.  We’ll be coming back here.”

Worthy music:

• Curtis Mayfield, “Move On Up” (Check out Curtis and "Move On Up" on YouTube >>)
• Bob Dylan, “My Back Pages” (Check it out on YouTube, with Bob, Tom Petty, Eric Clapton and others at the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert  >>)