11/6/19

George Marshall – Defender of the Republic

George Catlett Marshall, Winston Churchill’s architect of victory in World War II, has been compared to George Washington as a great American, perhaps the only two in the history of our Republic.

In a new book, George Marshall – Defender of the Republic (July 2019), author David L Roll lays out the case for that utterance in 704 pages. I read this book in hour long snippets every night for the last couple of months on my Samsung View — the high resolution tablet with the twice as wide view of an ordinary tablet. I read it methodically, as if I were to be tested on the content. It was a damn good, serious, adult read.

Continue reading →

11/4/19

Tariffs, China — How They Work

Everybody I know keeps telling me that tariffs won’t work, while I continue to stumble on instance after instance in which they work just fine.

Let me define what “work” means.

In my definition, the USA imposes a tariff on goods made in China, thereby making US-made products more attractive, and the company who makes the Chinese manufactured goods takes some action that somehow improves the US economy. That sound fair?

In this instance, we have the Stanley Black & Decker tool manufacturing company that bought the Craftsman brand from the failing Sears company moving production back to the United States.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

“When we purchased Craftsman in 2017 we were determined to revitalize this iconic U.S. brand and bring back its American manufacturing heritage,” Stanley Black & Decker President and CEO Jim Loree said in a statement. “From the launch of Craftsman’s refreshed brand identity last year to our announcement of the first new manufacturing facility in many years, we’re demonstrating our continued commitment to grow the brand and bring even more production of these great products back to the United States.”

When Jim Loree says he wants to refresh the brand identity, he is also planning on a $1B impact on sales by 2021.

Continue reading →

11/4/19

McDonalds CEO And His Consensual Romantic Relationship

This guy, this divorced Steve Easterbrook guy, was the Chief Executive Officer of McDonalds, by all accounts a good one.

So, he admits to having a “consensual romantic relationship” with an employee who is below him in the food chain at McDonalds. [Get it. The food chain. At McDonalds.]

Everybody is below the CEO in the food chain at McDonalds — well, except for Mickey. Mickey is above the CEO. Maybe the Hamburglar?

Easterbrook was a good CEO at McDonalds and is credited with having introduced a number of initiatives (all day breakfast, delivery, tech innovations) that had the stock solidly in the win column, but he exercised poor judgment and managed to get himself fired from a job that paid him $21.8MM in 2017. Ouch.

Continue reading →

10/31/19

Eric Ciamarella — The Whistleblower Identified

In the worst kept secret in the history of secrets, the world is pretending that the identity of Whistlebritches No 1 — Eric Ciamarella — is a secret.

In fact, he has been identified since the very beginning as exactly who anybody with any logic would have thought. Allow me to provide some background info:

Eric is a prep school and Yale grad who is a registered Democrat. He is an active Democrat and has been involved in assisting those engaged in oppo research during the 2016 Presidential election.

He works for the CIA and was detailed to the White House during the Obama admin wherein he worked for Susan Rice, National Security Adviser, and with Vice President Joe Biden and former CIA Director John Brennan.

As it turns out, 33-year-old Eric Ciamarella had something to do with the whole “Russian collusion” meme. More about that later.

He is a smart guy with extraordinary language skills: English, Russian, Ukrainian, and Arabic. This — Yale grad, great language skills — is exactly the kind of guy the CIA recruits to be analysts.

In the White House, he was on the Ukraine Desk — logical, right? Speaks the lingo.

In 2017, Eric was sent packing back to the CIA when his fingerprints were detected on a number of leaks to the media. He was already known as a man who was a huge Trump critic, a vocal opponent of the very policies he was employed to advance, and a leaker who had provided classified information to media outlets that resulted in negative stories that unfairly damaged the Trump administration.

He was pals with other NSC employees of a similar ilk — anti-Trump — one of whom, Sean Misko, now works for Adam Schiff, the Chairman of the House Intel Committee who provided aid, succor, and assistance to Eric when he brought them his whistle to be blown.

Continue reading →

10/27/19

Experience v Logic — Who Wins?

I have a former client — full disclosure he is one of two clients I have ever fired. I fired him because he was not diligent in keeping our appointments.

He paid well. He was always apologetic. He always had an excuse. He was and is a very good CEO, the kind you enjoy working with because he does the work and he was a nice person. Hard worker.

A couple of years later, he wrote me a lovely letter apologizing for his behavior that I promised him I would burn.

Recently, he calls me and asks, “Can you give me some help? I’m trying to hire a CEO coach.”

I look at the phone, stifle a laugh, and say, “Absolutely.”

Continue reading →

10/26/19

The We Work Fallout

We Work was symptomatic of venture capital funded companies that tiptoed to the public markets with no profits to feed the beast.

In the case of We Work, the market finally woke up and said, “Hey, you don’t even have a plan to become profitable. Get outta here.”

We Work was further punished for the behavior of its leader, the inimitable Adam Neumann, who was treated to a  hubris-crushing cure that resulted in his departure (though anybody who gets bought out with a more than a billion dollar send off will get no sympathy in the Big Red Car’s book, sorry).

What has now taken root is the quaint notion that companies — even before going to the beauty parlor to get primped for an IPO — are going to have to be within earshot of being profitable.

Continue reading →

10/25/19

Russia Shuts Down the Internet

Russia announced that it will be conducting a “trial shutdown” of the Internet country-wide. What bad could happen from that, you ask?

Russia explains it will be testing its own homebrew version of the Internet called the “RuNet.” Must have worked with a very powerful branding firm on the naming. Catchy.

The Russians will pull the plug on 1 November.

The first problem they have acknowledged is they are not perfectly certain they know how to shut down the Internet in Russia. They have been working on this idea for more than a decade and they are still not sure they can kill the Internet.

The Russians passed a law back in May that not many folks paid attention to, but the law directed the Roskomnadzor (Russia’s communications oversight agency) to gin up an “internet management and monitoring center to be able to suspend outside internet traffic.”

OK, I think he’s talking about that wacky Word of the Day site. Right?

Continue reading →

10/25/19

Ownership v Stewardship For The CEO Class

Stewardship — huh?

It is cold in the ATX this morning — 48F, but it will be 62F this afternoon and 82F on Saturday. I may lay off the sunscreen today, but back on it on Saturday.

So, about a year and a half ago, I’m speaking with a recently exited CEO who is in that special place that drives the question, “What’s next? Is there a second act?”

Luckily for him, this question of a second actship (see what I did right there, made that word up) is not really a pressing issue as the financial outcome provides breathing room for a couple of centuries — maybe a millenium — at his current burn rate.

So, we get to discussing, “What did you really learn? What do you leave with other than money?”

We get into the discussion of ownership v stewardship.

Continue reading →