Scent of a Woman

During the Foundations of Ethical Leadership course I co-teach with Prof George Reed, he likes to show a cut from the movie Scent of a Woman – a movie in which Al Pacino plays Frank Slade a retired Army LTC who has gone blind. In the cut George shows our students, LTC Slade stands up and defends Charlie Simms at a disciplinary hearing at ‘the Baird School,’ an exclusive New England prep school. Most of you recall the scene in which Charlie refuses to ‘snitch’ on a couple of his classmates, and the Baird superintendent threatens to expel him, and ruin his chances to go to Harvard and all the future success that implies. LTC Slade’s spririted defense of Charlie changes the mind of the disciplinary board, and Charlie is allowed to stay at Baird and everyone lives happily ever after. The issue for discussion is Moral Development, and the tension between Charlie’s duty to tell the truth versus being true to who he is, and whether he is willing to let the superintendent ‘buy’ his testimony by offering a guaranteed entry to Harvard.
This weekend I was channel surfing and saw that Scent of a Woman was beginning on one of the non-premium movie channels, and so I decided to watch the beginning of it – since it had been years since I had watched the whole movie. Watching it this time, a little older, and after having spent the last several years teaching ethics and character development, I saw so much more in this movie than when I viewed it the first time, soon after it came out in 1992.
This is the story of a man, Frank Slade, who though blind, has achieved so much that many men aspire to. He’s a war hero. He had seen power up close and had directly served President Lyndon Johnson in the White House. He is sophisticated, well dressed, comfortable in the most exclusive bars, hotels, and restaurants. He is the quintessential urbane worldly man, throws money around like a mafia Don, can identify by its scent the type of perfume a woman wears, is confident, glib, charming, and can sweep a woman off her feet with his charm and his dancing. The scene in which he teaches a beautiful young woman the Tango is as classic as John Travolta and Uma Thurman’s dance scene in Pulp Fiction. And with all of this, Slade is weary of himself, his pretensions, his vanities, and his life, and is ready to end it all. He is reminiscent of Jean-Baptiste Clamence in Albert Camus’ classic existentialist novel “The Fall.”
Into his life comes Charlie Simms, a young man with none of Slade’s urbane sophistication, and also none of his cynicism. He is about 17 years old, naive, trusting, optomisitic, honest, and completely unpretentious. The contrast between these two is dramatic, and is the basis of the story. Slade is using Charlie as a mere means to his own pleasures and ends, and Charlie is too polite, naive, and trusting to avoid being manipulated by him. Nonetheless, Charlie intervenes when Slade is about to commit suicide, and Slade threatens to kill him. They both confront their own deaths, and both are transformed by their experience together. The cynical old Slade who had ridiculed Charlie’s courage and simple honesty, becomes inspired by it, so much so that at the end of the movie, he has clearly taken a new lease on life.
This is a wonderful movie that can be appreciated on so many levels – a great story, with colorful characters, and on another level, a look at human values and purpose in today’s society. Highly recommended.

Some Insights on Social Branding

I just attended three excellent presentations and wanted to share with you a couple of insights I picked up at these presentations. I learned about for-profit and non-profit enterprises partnering to do “Social Branding” and I learned some new things about using the internet social and professional networking sites for both personal and corporate branding. The presentions on Social Branding were part of the “Increasing Market Share through Social Branding” conference at USD, hosted by the Ahler’s center for Inernational Business. If you want to know more about the conference and its theme, you can go to http://www.kpbs.org/news/2009/sep/17/how-can-businesses-be-more-charitable-and-profitab/ either read or listen to the interviews on KPBS’s These Days about “How Can Businesses Be More Charitable And Profitable At The Same Time?”
The first presentation I heard was by the Jake Kloberdanz, CEO of ‘ONEHOPE’ which buys and markets excellent wines, and whose mission is to donate 50% of their profits to charity. They have been very successful and have been profitable, and have succeeded in donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to a number of worthy causes. His line: “We measure success by how much we give, not how much we get.” ( More info on ONEHOPE at http://www.onehopewine.com/index.php )
The second presentation was by Colin Brady, the Director of Business Development for the non-profit (RED) which was started and still run by the Irish rock star Bono. (RED) partners with Apple, Gap, and Starbucks to fund anti-retrovirals for HIV positive people in Africa. He explained how the partnership has contributed to saving the lives of millions of people with HIV while at the same time helping Apple, Gap, Starbucks (and partners) increase and improve both Brand recognition, sales and market share. This appears to be a great example of for-profit/non-profit partnerships doing good while doing well. (More info on (RED) at http://www.joinred.com/Home.aspx )
I left the Ahler’s Center conference to hear the third presentation at a lunchtime session we held for MSGL students on personal branding and networking. At this session, Melonie Gallegos, the social media specialist for Geary Interactive spoke about how companies and individuals manage their brand and public image through creative, yet prudent use of on-line media sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Plaxo. She offered recommendations for managing one’s on-line ‘identity’ and recommended everyone ‘google’ their own name – because other people who want to know about you are already doing that. She asked “Do you know what will pop up, and is this how you want to be identified?” She offered advice about managing what people will see when using the standard search engines to do research on YOU. Her slide show can be viewed at: http://www.slideshare.net/gearyinteractive/social-media-for-employment-2020310 and is full of interesting insights for those of you who don’t spend a lot of time in the world of on-line media.
A great and thought provoking morning for me – now I’m back in the office getting caught up. Until next time.

TOP 10 Business Books

We’re trying to compile a list of the top 10 books that business people can comfortably assume that most business people have either read, or are familiar with, or at least have heard of. These should be books that one can comfortably refer to in business groups without getting the blank stare. This should be a good beginning for ‘must read’ books in order to be conversant in today’s business culture. Where we’re at now is (not in any particular order):
1. Good to Great, by Jim Collins
2. The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman
3. Built to Last, by Collins and Porras
4. Who Moved My Cheese, by Johnson and Blanchard
5. Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell
6. Strengths Finder 2.0, by Tom Rath
7. Now Discover your Strengths, by Buckingham and Clifton
8. Talent is Over-rated, by Geoff Colvin
9. Blue Ocean Strategy, by Kim and Mauborgne
10. Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell
11. Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell
Anybody have any other ideas or suggestions? We’d like to get 15 or 20 candidates and then bounce that list off our friends in the Corporate Director’s Forum and see what they think – to help us get the list down to ten. Let us know what you think. Thanks Bob

Welcome to Bob’s Corner

1 Sep I’m reading a great book entitled Questions of Character – Illuminating the Heart of Leadership through Literature, by Joe Badaracco, Professor of Business Ethics at HBS. The book is based on a course he teaches entitled “The Moral Leader.” A couple of the pieces of literature and cases he discusses in the book are discussed in a short article, “Why Leaders need Great Books” that you can access here I found another short article about his approach that I like, which you can see by clicking here entitled “Machieavelli, Morals, and YOU.” In this piece he offers some very good practical wisdom and gives a positive spin on Machiavelli’s morals. Note the four interpretations of Machiavelli’s The Prince at the bottom. By the way this Harvard newsletter on lessons from their business school classroom is available for free. Enjoy. Bob

27 Aug John Ruzicka will be notifying Alumni about a student/Alumni reception here on 24 Sept, which will coincide with an info session for anyone wanting to know more about MSGL. Also we are on point for USD in sorting out how active duty and veterans will be able to use Post 9-11 GI Bill to support their education here. Stephanie is probably the smartest person in the region on that moving target. The Government is still sorting it out. Bob

19 Aug For those of you looking for a mentor, or who are mentors for others, I saw a great article in the WSJ on the responsibilities of protoges in mentoring relationships. Go here. I’d appreciate any comments in the comment section of this blog. Bob