You have got to read this article from Nature magazine. Many of you may not know Nature magazine, although I suspect some of you do. It is a fantastic magazine that covers the broad spectrum of the sciences. I’ve come across it, as I’m sure most of you have, based on the fact most newspapers of general circulation around the country quote either Science magazine or Nature magazine, or one of their derivative publications, for notice of publication of the most recent advancements in science.

This particular article reflects the finding that the adaptation of a fish’s eye to its visual environment biases the females to mate with males according to their specific coloration. Even more substantially, it also suggests that it can contribute to the formation of new species.

Apparently, according to the article, since females with blue biased vision tend to mate only with blue males and females with red biased vision mate only with red males, what you see is what you get.

Looked at differently, beauty really is in the eyes of the beholder! Enjoy the article.

SENSORY ECOLOGY

In sight of speciation

Mark Kirkpatrick and Trevor Price

Adaptation of a fish’s eyes to its visual environment can bias females to mate with different males
according to their coloration. This sensory preference can contribute to the formation of new species.

How and why do barriers that prevent mating between species evolve? On page 620 of this issue, Seehausen et al.1 present a rich and eclectic data set that suggests a key role for vision in African cichlid fishes. It has been shown in other fish that natural selection tunes eyes to their visual environment, so that individuals can best see not only what they eat and what eats them, but also members of their own species2–4. Seehausen et al. carry this story a step further with work on fish in which the males are either red or blue (Fig. 1), and which have genetic variation for visual sensitivity to those colours.

In some populations, females with bluebiased vision seem to mate only with blue males, whereas red-biased females mate only
with red males. The inference is that natural selection acting on the visual system contributes to reproductive barriers and the formation of new species. In short, what you see determines what you get, and with whom you get it on. More controversially,
the authors suggest that these barriers might arise within a population, and do not, as has previously been thought, require a phase in which red and blue populations evolve in geographical isolation.

The biological and ecological setting for this story is dramatic — the cichlid fish in the Great Lakes of Africa. These fish are the most rapidly speciating organisms on Earth, and this explosion of life has produced a panoply of colour, morphology and behaviour,
a sampling of which can be seen at your local pet shop. The fish in Lake Victoria, where the present study1 was done, show a fantastically high rate of speciation. More than 500 species inhabit the lake. They may have originated just a few hundred thousand years ago5, and possibly went through a period of large-scale interbreeding 20,000 years ago6.

The lake has diverse visual environments. Starting at the shore and descending along the lake bottom, red becomes increasingly
dominant in the ambient visual spectrum. This spectral shift is rapid at some sites and more gradual at others. To study how the fish have adapted to these conditions, Seehausen et al. wanted to know what the fish see. They identified genetic variants (alleles) in one of the opsin genes responsible for tuning the fish’s visual sensitivity to different colours. By expressing these genes in vitro and measuring the absorption properties of the resulting proteins, they found some variants that are redbiased in their sensitivity and others that are blue-biased. The red-biased variant is typically found in fish living at greater depths than the blue-biased one.

The numbers of males with red, blue and intermediate coloration vary between populations. At sites where the spectral shift is neither very rapid nor very gradual, notably Makobe island, blue males are confined to the shallows and red males to greater depths. At this site, the great majority of blue males carry the blue-biased opsin variant, whereas most red males carry the red-biased one. The two colour morphs also show differences in other genetic markers, suggesting that they are nascent species. At sites where the spectral shift is rapid, however, the colour forms interbreed, presumably because they encounter each other frequently.

Is beauty just in the eye of the beholder? In mate-choice experiments using fish from controlled crosses, Seehausen et al. find that the opsin variant alone does not strongly determine mating preference. Segregation of the colour morphs by depth in the lake must mean that the fish mainly encounter and hence mate with their own kind. It is not difficult to imagine that fish prefer to spend time in habitats in which they see best — that is, visual tuning could generate a type of habitat preference that contributes to speciation above and beyond its effects on mate choice.

But is even this enough? Other findings point to an additional mechanism that complements reproductive isolation via vision. The
females of these remarkable fish brood their eggs in their mouths, then guard the young fry after they hatch. In experiments reported last year, Verzijden and ten Cate7 swapped eggs between the mouths of red morph and blue morph mothers. Females raised from the experimental broods strongly preferred males from their foster morph over those of their own morph (Fig. 2). As females of the two species look very similar, it is unclear whether the offspring preference is based on colour or some other correlated cue such as odour. Regardless of that, learning at a young age (sexual imprinting) apparently contributes to reproductive isolation in these cichlids, as it does in other groups such as birds8. The implication is that assortative mating
— the tendency of like to mate with like — can arise whenever male characteristics diverge in response to differences in the environment, which might happen even without divergence in the opsin pigments. It remains to be seen if imprinting, vision and perhaps other mechanisms have been sufficient to generate new species without geographical isolation.

An intriguing observation mentioned by Seehausen et al.1 is that the red- and blue-biased opsin alleles are evolutionarily much older than the species studied here. Red and blue colour morphs are found in other species of cichlid9,
suggesting that the colour polymorphism may also be ancient. Perhaps one key to the spectacular species radiation of African cichlids is that they inherited from distant ancestors a trove of genetic variation for sensory systems and male signals, possibly contributed during the inferred episode of interbreeding 20,000 years ago. This variation is entrained again and again in speciation events. To systematists, these events represent independent nodes on the evolutionary tree. From the fish’s point of view, however, they are perhaps more like an evolutionary play that is re-enacted, night after night, with the same genetic cast. ■

Mark Kirkpatrick is in the Section of Integrative
Biology, University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712,
USA. Trevor Price is in the Department of Ecology
and Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago,
Illinois 60637, USA.

e-mails: kirkp@mail.utexas.edu;
pricet@uchicago.edu

1. Seehausen, O. et al. Nature 455, 620–626 (2008).
2. Boughman, J. W. Nature 411, 944–948 (2001).
3. Maan, M. E., Hofker, K. D., van Alphen, J. J. M. &
Seehausen, O. Am. Nat. 167, 947–954 (2006).
4. Cummings, M. E. Evolution 61, 530–545 (2007).
5. Genner, M. J. et al. Mol. Biol. Evol. 24, 1269–1282 (2007).
6. Seehausen, O. et al. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 270, 129–137 (2003).
7. Verzijden, M. N. & ten Cate, C. Biol. Lett. 3, 134–136 (2007).
8. ten Cate, C. & Vos, D. R. Adv. Study Behav. 28, 1–31 (1999).
9. Seehausen, O. & Schluter, D. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 271, 1345–1353 (2004).

NATURE|Vol 455|2 October 2008

Original writing date: October 13, 2008
Article writing date: October 2008

This article is from the Times online and is written by Gerard Baker. It is one of the more seminal articles representative of some of the rubbish I personally heard with respect to the implications of the bailout in historical terms. Yes, while it’s true we are in a mess, it’s also true that we will work out of this mess just as we have in so many other economic crises in our history. We have been virtually bankrupt no less than four times in our history and in each of those cases we came out even stronger. This is a mess, to be sure; however, it is by no means, as one of my internationalist friends told me the other day at Starbucks, the beginning of the shift of power from the United States to other countries, economies, and ideologies. Enjoy the article!

Original writing date: October 6, 2008
Article writing date: October 3, 2008

Janet and I have a 15-month-old and we split up certain “responsibilities.” I call them responsibilities for want of a better term, and I am totally convinced that I got the better end of the bargain. Even though these responsibilities have to be done, when assignments were issued, I managed to get the things I really wanted to do and Janet got the rest.

In any event, I give our 15-month-old, Jordan, a bath every night between 7 and 7:30 pm. To say that it is a bath is somewhat misleading because it is more a “process” than an “event.” There is the pre-bath, the bath, and the post-bath.

The Bath

The pre-bath process includes “I’m gonna get you” behavior—on my part, of course, not on his—culminating in me eventually undressing him.

The bath consists of this “ba-boom ba-boom,” behavior with a green cushioned crab going after Jordan’s neck as I complete the cleansing and shampooing process.

And the post-bath consists of my efforts to put Jordan’s pajamas on while he retains the opportunity to be without clothes.

Somewhere along the line, while trying to trap Jordan long enough to put his diaper on before the tee-shirt, the socks, the pajamas, the bib, and the hair combing, it occurred to me that I was being given the opportunity of a lifetime to learn fundamental lessons of negotiating at the earliest stages of development.

Let me share with you what I discovered.

1. Select your points of contact.

Jordan starting walking on his first birthday. Not one day before, not a day after. Right on his birthday. I’m not exactly sure why it occurred that way, but it did. Since that time, he has pretty much terrorized the house.

We had decided not to child-proof the house, not because we were naïve about the chances of ceramic survival but because it just wasn’t worth living the next three or four years with a stripped down, padded wall living environment. Besides, we figured that along the way we would probably learn some lessons about how to protect the goods.

Our first lesson was that we might as well pick our points of contact or points of battle. If we were going to say “no” to everything that Jordan touched, we could pretty much be assured that at some point he’d simply tune us out. So, we started taking a look at everything he was touching. When it was something that really didn’t matter—cloth, candles, books, pictures, and more or less, unbreakables—we simply let him play to his heart’s content and factored in the compromising expectation that we would be retrieving a lot off the floor.

On the other hand, when Jordan went after the breakables—crystal, wine glasses, decanters, brandy glasses, statuettes, art work and the like—the directive was a gentle “no,” followed up by additional no’s as we guided his hand away from the object mesmerizing him.

We’ve been using this procedure about three months. Will it work? I don’t have a clue. But, in the meantime, it occurred to me that negotiation is no different.

In negotiating, you want to provide a general framework of “yes” or agreement and choose very carefully the points you are prepared to discuss. If something doesn’t matter or represents a minor inconvenience, let it go, storing in your mind only those things that require major discussion. In the process, you create an environment in which you and your negotiating partner come up with the various ways that you agree on things. You focus on those areas on which you may not agree. They are narrowed down to those that are essential to you and on which you focus your primary consideration. Of course, the inconveniences along the way are not forgotten; they are stored for future barter.

Choosing your points of contact, or points for “no,” doesn’t always work. Take a look at rule number 2.

2. Always replace a “no” with a “yes.”

At 15 months old, Jordan is not all that interested in learning what he is not allowed to do. Breakables are within reach of a boy who wants to touch anything he can as often as he can and with maximum effect. That has resulted in a few “accidents” along the way, but so far, we have been fairly good at the process. A simple “no” is certainly not enough. Repetitive “no’s” are better, but we have to add in another factor.

When you combine a “no” with a “yes” to something he is allowed to do, this attention is shifted from what he is not allowed to do to what is available.

“No, Jordan, don’t touch the brandy glass” turns into “Here, Jordan, hold pretty red candle.”

Negotiating isn’t a whole lot different than that and, in fact, it is probably not even all that much more sophisticated.

“I appreciate very much what you are saying, Mike, but that’s just not something I am willing to do. However, let me make a suggestion to you about something else I think might be beneficial to both of us.”

Same concept, different ages.

3. Demonstrate your capabilities.

Part of the nightly ritual, especially now that Jordan is walking, is for me to chase him around the rocking chair in his bedroom as I go through the process of getting his pajamas on (a process, by the way, which takes longer than the bath).

I don’t exactly go all of the way around the rocking chair because I can’t. I can only go three-quarters of the way around it because the crib is next to the rocking chair and there is a little wooden rocking horse in between the chair and the crib. The only one who can fit between the two of them, even on our hands and knees, is Jordan.

Somehow, however, Jordan hasn’t managed to figure that out. He knows that I can never chase him through the straights, but even when I bluff and pretend that I will, he takes me up on it and runs the other way. And then, of course, I catch him as he is coming around the other side and put on one more piece of clothing.

You have to be asking yourself at this point, what could that possibly have to do with negotiating. Think about it. In a real negotiating session when both players are playing for keeps, part of your assessment of your own negotiating position reflects your assessment of the other person’s strengths and capabilities to do without the choice you are negotiating for. In other words, when you are assessing how much you should be pressing a particular point and the extent to which that particular point is important to you, you also have to ascertain what the other person’s alternatives are.

A standard negotiating technique is to diminish the value of certain aspects of what the other person is offering you and highlight your own capabilities of performing even if this deal does not go through.

Regardless of whether we are bluffing, your negotiating partner’s position, as well as his or her response, will be predicated as much upon whether he or she wants the deal as it is upon the extent to which he or she sees or knows that you have other alternatives available to you. Regardless of whether those alternatives are available to you, what’s important is that the other person believes they are.

We had three joint residency training programs in San Diego immediately prior to the San Diego convention. The city was completely booked, and any locations close to the convention site were taken. My job, after our logistics department had been unable to find a location for over three months, was to go to San Diego and a cut a deal with some hotel as close as possible to the San Diego convention site.

I finally found a location, but it could have turned out to be unworkable for us if the hotel recognized how booked the entire city was and how minimal my alternatives were. It was literally the only hotel that had any availability at all.

Needless to say, I got through the negotiation. It was as important to the success of that negotiation that the hotel perceived my capability to bring the programs elsewhere as it was that the hotel wanted our business.

4. One snap at a time.

I happened to remark to a friend of mine not too long ago that I had never lived so much in the moment as I had when I was putting Jordan’s pajamas on, one snap at a time. I guess it hadn’t occurred to me that a baby hitting the crawling age isn’t going to lie there and allow you to put his pajamas on while he mediates.

The first time Janet sent me in there to put his pajamas on and I came back out of his room looking like I had been through a hail and wind storm, I realized that I probably had the wrong perspective on the whole thing.

My objective was to get to the end—putting his pajamas on. My objective should have been to stay with the process, step by step. Making the first objective paramount could wear any adult out. When I finally got the idea, that the objective was not putting the pajamas on but snapping each snap, the whole process turned out to be a blast.

The greatest sins in negotiating occur when we are so keen on cutting the deal that we forget to set the pitons. We want the objective, but we don’t recognize that the objective is worthless, or the expenditure of effort too significant, if we are not securing our position along the way. There is only one way to do that—point by point, measure by measure.

In a good negotiation, each party focuses on the process, listening and responding appropriately to the other side, and then moves on when both are comfortable. That is about the only way that I know to create a hassle free, tussle free, negotiated result that lasts.

5. Sometimes only a bald smile will do.

In certain instances, when Jordan starts getting himself worked up because we are refusing to give him what he wants and there isn’t any opportunity for diversion, there aren’t too many options left.

At 15 months, he certainly doesn’t understand strong negative reinforcement or, in any event, if he does, it certainly is not going to quiet him down in the middle of a restaurant full of people. And when we take a look at the objective, the most important one at that moment is to get him quiet without sacrificing the dish that he is reaching for or the salt-shaker that he has already thrown on the ground twice before.

It’s during those times that only one option is left—make a game out of it. When our parental position changes from participating in a tug of war to pretending that it’s a game, Jordan stops crying, starts playing, laughs, and moves on when the game is over.

At times, in the midst of a negotiation, when it is clear that both parties are at loggerheads over a particular point, there is sometimes only one choice left—baldly and boldly make a game of it to the point where it is obvious that it’s a game, intended to be lighthearted, and intended to put into perspective the particular point at issue.

Subtlety is no longer necessary. In fact, the more the subtlety, the less effective is the move to provide a smile. The action has to be abrupt, obvious, and so apparently self-serving that the very light-heartedness of it breaks the stalemate.

I remember being in the midst of a client’s mediation settlement that had gone hot and heavy for several days with one final sticking point over $20,000. Even though $20,000 is a lot of money in real terms, the actual lawsuit was over a $400,000 claim. We had been deadlocked on this one $20,000 issue for close to two hours and it appeared that the $20,000 conflict was going to jeopardize the entire settlement.

In the middle of the mediation and at a particularly tense time, I suggested that this was about to go as far as it could go and if we couldn’t reach agreement rationally, we should have both parties throw their choices to the fates and cut a deck for high card. I never expected the suggestion to be taken seriously, but what happened was priceless. The air lightened up so much by my suggestion and the tenseness in the atmosphere was cut so drastically that both parties started laughing about how funny it would be if a three year lawsuit got solved by cutting high card. That opening in the communication allowed the parties to resolve not only that one issue but the rest of the entire case in less than 30 minutes.

In a business closing I was conducting as a neutral closing agent, it appeared that the parties were stuck on one particular point. We simply could not reach a rational solution with both parties firmly implanted in their positions and getting more stubborn with each passing minute. I feared that if we continued in that vein, the entire closing would blow up. There was no way to get them to a settled position based on any rational ground.

Hence, with a wry smile, I suggested that we forget about trying to reach an agreement in principal and asked the buyer of the bakery if he would be willing to deliver two dozen croissants on the first Friday of every month for the next twelve months to the seller’s office. I hadn’t asked the seller whether he was willing to accept that, but most important of all, I had to get them lightened up to the point of gaining some perspective over the issue.

It did the trick. We ended up not with my suggestion but with the buyer of the business delivering to the seller’s office two dozen croissants every Friday for three months after the closing.

Sometimes, you have to throw all of the negotiation niceties to the wind and just go for the smile.

In any event, Jordan, I don’t know whether these are negotiating lessons I just learned in having to deal with you, or whether I’m just being reminded. In any event, I’m learning a lot and I owe it all to you.

Original writing date: September 1996

I’m sitting out here on our newly remodeled porch and swimming pool with Isabella on my legs. I’m feeding her and her eyes are wide open, looking at me. I have music playing and I’m waving her two-month-old arms, back and forth to the music.

It’s now sunset on our back porch. We’re watching the lake as the sun drops closer to it. Jordan and Jared are swimming and enjoying the early summer evening.

Jordan, who’s now eight, pokes his head out of the water and wants to know if we can check the Internet tonight to see whether we can both locate and order a personal hovercraft to use either on the lake or in the pool. I ask him what it is, and he says that it is like a great big hovercraft, except that it is really like a bumper car that he could be using to have fun while he was swimming with his friends or his brother or playing on the lake.

I ask him whether there is such a thing, and he says, exasperated, “Dad, I don’t know. But if they don’t make it, let’s just order one and have them make it for us!”

My how silly of me. You know, I was absolutely stunned. I guess I shouldn’t be because I’ve operated that way for most of my life. I think I was more stunned that it is visible enough for Jordan to identify with it.

You know, as we go through life, we recognize certain modes of behavior in all of us.

Some of us operate based upon what is already available in the real world.

Others of us don’t even bother to check out what’s available in the real world; we just assume that it’s not.

There are others who envision what it would be like if…

And, still others who, when wondering what it would be like if…recognize that we can make it that way—either by ourselves or by having someone more skilled than we are doing it for us.

“Let’s make it in our image and likeness, Dad.” In our image and likeness! Oh my. Where could he possibly have heard that?

For years, I’ve operated under the assumption that says if I can’t find it, I can build it or have it built. And if I’m going to do that, I might as well build it in my own image and likeness. What’s the point of building something, if it is going to be different from how I view myself or the picture I have in my mind?

After all, if it doesn’t currently exist, the picture you have in your mind of how you want it to look in life and in reality is what should drive it anyway, especially when it ultimately manifests!

“And Daddy, I’d rather it have two people in it so I can have fund with Jared, but if it doesn’t and it only seats one at a time, I’m okay with that too!” Got it, Jordan.

We’ll see what we can do.

Original writing date: August 2003

I was shooting hoops earlier this evening. We had just finished off a Halloween party with the kids and parents on the block. It was great fun.

The rest of the parents headed across the street from us to our friends and neighbors to roast S’mores. I stayed behind to shoot some hoops on our front lawn. I was perfectly content and having a good time playing.

I was thinking about what I would be writing for an article and had my micro cassette recorder ready.

I missed my first seven or eight shots cold. Off the side. Off the backboard. Ricocheted off the rim. Directly back to me. And so forth. Eight cold, without a point. Suddenly, I started shooting 100 percent from every angle. Straight on. Three pointers. Cross shots. It didn’t matter. I was hot.

I realized something was different but I wasn’t sure what it was. I continued doing it and continued scoring. I started analyzing and started missing. I put down my micro cassette and took another shot. Straight in. No backboard. A swish. What’s that all about? Why can’t I do that all the time? As I was shooting, it occurred to me that shooting hoops is probably not a whole lot different from what 2001 was for most of us in business.

2001 was a pivotal year. We are coming off the “New Economy” and shifting into the “Next Economy.” Midway through the prior year, we had invalidated the “Old Economy” and suddenly were thrust into the need to now invalidate the “New Economy.” After all, it simply didn’t work. It left us all disappointed, of course.

But it also left us changed in a fundamental way.

The Old Economy had the rules. It had the business models that we know worked. After all, business is not brain surgery. It is delivering a product or service the public wants in the most efficient and effective way.

The New Economy turned the Old Economy on its head. Fundamental rules were no longer in vogue. If you didn’t get “it,” you didn’t get it! Not too long thereafter, the New Economy imploded; a new perspective does not a successful model make. New language does not, in and of itself, mean transformation.

With the demise of the New Economy, the Next Economy was born. Somewhere around March or April of 2001.

A Next Economy emerged, with flesh and blood, suggesting that the Old Economy had its place after all. Successful, tried and true business models do obviously work, so why reject them out of hand?

At the same time, the New Economy also had much to offer. After all, digital consciousness sensitized us to what the Pentium generation and the Internet could offer—information and communication when combined together.

It was up to the Next Economy, to integrate the two.

Thesis. Antithesis. Synthesis. It’s always the same in Business. Politics. Economics. Not much has changed in 120 years.

So what does it look like today with 2001 just about behind us?

The rules for the Next Economy begin to emerge.

1. Fundamental business models are clearly intact. Business models still and always will rule, because human instinct is based on self-interest and business rules satisfy that self-interest.

2. If you keep your eye on the target, techniques can always be tested with impunity.

The New Economy was not about changing the target. In the final analysis, business is about making money; it is not about raising venture capital.

If you test different techniques for doing that, that’s fine, but you cannot be enamored with any one technique unless the technique works to achieve the objective.

Straight up shots are infinitely easier without a backboard.

Angled shots are far easier off the backboard. Net shots work better when the eye is trained on the net, not on the backboard.

3. The reasons behind failure or success are far less important than the reality of failure or success.

Why the shot went in or why the shot missed is far less important than whether it went in or whether it missed.

Why it hit or missed gives us the rules for application. The rules for application are far more important than whether something hits or misses at any one time. The one gives you a point. The other gives you a history of points.

4. Sharpened tools beat rusty tools any day.
An inflated basketball.
An exercised arm.
Limbered legs and leg muscles.
Sharpened tools produce far more consistent results.

Original writing date: December 2001

My Weber barbecue didn’t work. It was on high, the gas was swelling, but didn’t get above the test level of 75 degrees.

Why?

That was the issue.

The circumstances mattered—at least to our guests. We had a whole group of people we didn’t know all that well at the house and I had a bunch of orange ruffy about to go on the flame…expecting it to cook. Somehow, nothing was happening.

What to do, besides calling out for pizza?

Something was wrong and I wasn’t sure what it was. You have to find out because you have a result to achieve. So, what do you do?

Step 1. Go through the alternatives.

The gas on? Yes. How do I know that? Easy. The flame is burning.

Okay, the gas in on.

The gas on full boar? I think so! The knob doesn’t move any farther to the left. So that’s not the issue.

If the gas is on and the gas is on full boar, then why isn’t it heating?

I didn’t know. I truly didn’t. But it obviously wasn’t heating. Could it be that it’s wet? Or greasy? Or something? Yes, of course. But that’s the whole point—what is it?

That’s business diagnostics.

If a business doesn’t work, there has to be a reason. It’s not like its not working because of no cause. There is something that is creating a scenario in which it is not working. Our job is to find out what that is. Our job is not to simply quit.

Have you ever tried to cook orange ruffy on a grill? If you have, and it’s not working you figure out how to make it work. You don’t personalize it. You don’t kill the messenger or slaughter the orange ruffy. You simply figure out how to make it work.

It’s no different in business.

The process is the same.

Step 1. Establish what you objective is. In the case of the orange ruffy, it was a fire breathing barbecue heating to 375.

Step 2. Identify whether the objective is being achieved. If not…go through the alternatives as to why it is not achieving the objective the alternatives as to why it is not achieving the objective. Sometimes it’s meticulous. Often times it’s pedantic. But there should be no other option but to go through those alternatives one at a time in descending order or priority. The most obvious first. The second most obvious second. And so forth and so on.

Step 3. When you find the right one, fix the problem and move on.

Business diagnostics. What was your objective? Did you achieve the objective? Why not—go through the alternatives. It’s diagnostics at different levels each time.

By the way, I don’t know a lot about barbeques, but when it came down to it, it was the flame pocket. It was wet. Just in the knick of time, said our guests.

De-personalize the process and objectify the steps.

Original writing date: May 1999

I’m not sure exactly what grade I was in. Probably the 6th or 7th grade. I was studying American history, including Teddy Roosevelt.

The famous slogan, as you probably remember from your own studies, was “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

I loved that. Even at 12 or 13 years old, I loved it. It was not only perfect, but it was everything I had imagined. The opportunity to be clear and concise, powerful, but not over-bearing.

About two years ago, I was listening to a friend who was exceptionally bright in infomercial direct response. You had to listen very closely to what he had to say because he spoke very quietly and never enunciated his words. However, if you didn’t listen, you were foolish. Everything he had to say was right on the mark. He was bright. Intelligent. Astute. And very apropos.

He didn’t have to scream, it didn’t matter. If you listened, fine. If you didn’t it was your life, so…he said what he said, and it didn’t matter if you abided his opinion.

I was speaking to a person whom I have respected for 20 years. I have practiced law with him for 15 years. And I have often represented his own personal business interests over the past 10 years. He was giving me advice. He never—ever—accentuates his language. It is 100 percent monotone. He tells me what he tells me and nothing more.

But I listen to every word!

Why? Because Jack speaks softly and carries a big stick. He always has. He doesn’t have to compete because it doesn’t matter. He cares, but he also respects the fact that it is your life. If you listen, so be it. If you don’t so be it. He has no ax to grind and no agenda to promote.

He is a man after my own heart!

He cares, but he also realizes that each of us has to live his own life. He’ll give you his opinion, softly and respectfully. You’d better listen. He cares what happens to you, but he also realizes we all have to make our own mistakes.

You’ll rarely hear him utter a negative word about any person. He’ll focus on himself and you and give you his opinion when it is called for. But he won’t press, and he won’t offend.

Don’t get confused. The people who scream the loudest most often have the least to say. And those who focus energy on the negative about others almost always have the least to contribute themselves.

Speak softly and carry a big stick. It may not have as much sizzle, but it sure has a whole lot more meat.

Original writing date: October 1999

I was watching a special on Edward Albee, the relatively famous still-living playwright who, among other things, brought us Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf? It was some type of Tony presentation in Washington, D.C., on his life and achievements. President and Mrs. Clinton were there. Al and Tipper Gore were there. Countless dignitaries from D.C. rubbed shoulders with famous celebs from Hollywood.

None of that is all that important, except that it provided the back-drop for a presentation on Albee’s life and work as a very serious playwright and creative force in theater.

Amidst all of the hoopla, one thing struck me as being interesting. Albee was exceptionally supportive of the avant-garde works of new and aspiring playwrights worldwide. He nurtured them and he supported them. He healed their wounds and suffered their humiliations. And he took joy from their creative expansions.

It occurred to me that that general theme—supporting others navigating a similar craft—is reflected in not just Albee, but countless other artistic and creative luminaries throughout history. The more successful they were, the more they struggled. The more noteworthy they became. And the more they were prepared to help and guide aspiring creative artists.

I wondered what it was about art which was so very different from business.

In business, unlike in art, the objective seems not to be to assist others, nurture them, trust in them, and provoke their highest genius. The objective appears to be to win and winning, all too often, at the expense of others. In business, unlike in art, the general feeling appears to be that if one wins, the other must lose—a general sense that if my company is to be successful, the company providing a similar service must be beaten to a pulp.

To say I’ve never operated that way in business is to state the obvious and doesn’t really get us very far. Of course, I have never done that, and of course, there is no question that I have left countless millions of dollars on the table because of it. But that’s not really the question. The question—

Why is it that business cannot emulate art in one’s respect for authentic creation?

When I pose that question, I mean those words precisely. Business is artistic. It is creative. It does manifest something that was only really a thought before that. Any yet, business does not operate as a creative manifestation. It operates as if one wins and the other must lose. Buy into that, and there is never a possibility you will germinate the artistic seed of creative action.

As I have watched so many people simply co-opt my products, programs, concepts, and ideas, to the point where they duplicated what I had done years ago with no consideration for the fact that I long ago moved past it, I wonder where their sense of creation is in the process of producing—manifesting—what their thoughts are or their vision for the future of their product or service.

After all, that’s the essence of the creative impulse: to manifest in physical reality a vision for what something can look like in the future. Whether it’s a da Vinci painting, a Michelangelo sculpture, a Thomas Mann novel, or a Bronson business, it’s all the same—trying to manifest something that does not yet exist—the very essence of the creative impulse.

That process is internal. da Vinci, not van Gogh, painted the Last Supper.

Michelangelo, not Walpole, handcrafted the David. Thomas Mann, not Sidney Sheldon, wrote Buddenbrooks. And Bronson, not Steve Jobs, built Virgin Airlines.

When we are manifesting into physical reality the vision we so clearly see in our heads, we are involved in the creative instinct—the creative impulse. And that creative process does not come from looking to the left or the right; it comes from within. When we see others do things differently, regardless of the field in which they operate, the message we learn is not that we are inferior or superior or that they’ll “beat us.” The message is that there is wonderful value here for us to learn as we sit in respected admiration for the creator.

There may be those who knocked off the da Vincis, the Michelangelos, the Manns, the Bronsons, but there is no respect for them, there is no admiration for them, because they are just simply dilettantes, rip-offs, knock-offs.

Those we respect are those creators among us who, in each instance in their actions, continue to push the custom forward, take several small steps and an occasional big step to rework, rethink, and reformulate, what life can actually appear to be.

And for those, we should admire their work at every level. Help those around us who are pushing forward, assist those who have come before us and pave the way for those who will come after. The value for us becomes the value for all.

When we view business as an opportunity for the planting of a creative seed, we have the opportunity to look around to see, appreciate and admire the work of those who are doing similar work. When we view it as an “I win—you lose,” we destroy the opportunity to creative value in our work and, in the process, kill the creative spirit.

Original writing date: October 1997

Take a look at this article on Starbucks. Several components worth noting. First, the author discusses the relationship between the expansion strategy and the adaptations Starbucks would have to have made in order to adapt appropriately. Secondly, there is a subcurrent as to the difference between a private company and a public company when we are dealing with premium brands. The nature of the beast in a public company is the incessant drive to expand profits in the short term, which is not always an appropriate long-term strategy for premium brands where less is often more. This is penned by Senior Associate Dean and Harvard Business School Professor John Quelch. Enjoy the read.

Original writing date: September 9, 2008
Article writing date: July 9, 2008

This commentary from Jonah Goldberg of Tribune Media Services as to the current shift in the campaign since Governor Palin came on the scene offers some interesting thoughts as to the difficulty the selection of Palin is to the Democratic Party and to what it potentially is doing to Senator Obama’s strategy. Enjoy.

Original writing date: September 10, 2008
Article writing date: September 10, 2008