Tag Archives: Business

All Business is Personal

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The Godfather “The God­fa­ther is the I-Ching. The God­fa­ther is the sum of all wis­dom.” — Joe Fox (Tom Hanks’ char­ac­ter in You’ve Got Mail).

I’m sure you’ve noticed that the phrase “noth­ing per­sonal — just busi­ness” has entered the busi­ness lex­i­con over the years since 1972 when the movie adap­ta­tion of Mario Puzo’s 1962 novel The God­fa­ther. Funny thing is, the movie gives you the wrong impres­sion. I’ve read the novel, and Mario Puzo explains that the phrase is not a sen­ti­ment with which Don Cor­leone would agree. In fact in the novel, only Don Vito Cor­leone (and later, Don Michael Cor­leone) seem to prop­erly under­stand the inter­sec­tion between what is busi­ness and what is per­sonal. The movie places the quote on Michael’s lips, but only if you’d read the book would you under­stand Micheal’s words to be merely intended to pla­cate his brother Sonny and Tom Hagen, who are sep­a­rat­ing the two in the dis­cus­sion about their response to the attempted mur­der of their father. If you only saw the movie, you’d think this was the phi­los­o­phy espoused by the Don. It isn’t.

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Apple is Bigger than Jesus… or the Beatles.

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It’s being noticed that Apple’s (AAPL) mar­ket cap has shot up to the stratos­phere, and sug­gested by some that it’s Only A Mat­ter Of Time Until Apple’s Mar­ket Cap Is Big­ger Than Microsoft I say don’t hold your breath for it to get — or stay — there. Paul Kedrosky wrote yes­ter­day about Apple, Wal-mart, and the “Mar­ket Cap­i­tal­iza­tion Big­ger Than” Thing, con­clud­ing “When we press our noses against the mar­ket glass and ‘oooh’ and ‘aaah’ at a company’s mar­ket cap­i­tal­iza­tion exceed­ing some­thing it shouldn’t … let’s just say bad things tend to hap­pen. Eventually.”

I agree — just take a look at the con­text he gives it. Do you really think that Apple is worth over $200 Bil­lion today?

Cronies of a Feather

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I’m think­ing today about the ben­e­fits of hav­ing cronies. by_a_beer Not in the pejo­ra­tive sense of the word “crony­ism” but in the sim­ple business-oriented sense of the term. Look­ing back over my career, I can spot a num­ber of invalu­able con­tri­bu­tions from var­i­ous friends and busi­ness acquain­tances shared over a beer.

The value one can get from dis­cussing busi­ness prob­lems and ideas in an infor­mal con­text with a few trusted col­leagues can’t be over­stated. This doesn’t have to be a meet-with-your-guru kind of thing, though some­times it is done with a coach or con­sul­tant. But if you have or can find a few busi­ness own­ers or pro­fes­sion­als like your­self to meet as peers and toss around ideas or pick away at chal­leng­ing prob­lems, it can be enough to keep you in the game when you seem to his a wall — and it can do the same for them as well.

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coup d’œil (part three)

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In part one and part two of this blog-intro series, I talked about the notion of business decisions at a glance based on an almost intuitive understanding of the field of play. The phrase coup d'oeil is taken from the military, and refers to the ability of the rare commander who posesses an exceptionally quick understanding of the field of battle and can make strategic decisions quickly. This ability is based largely on experience and analysis at a subconscious level. From this background, the final installment in this trilogy announces what I hope to achieve on this blog.

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