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One of the perks of corporate office is the presumption of stature and legitimacy.  In other words, the general public typically brings all sorts of assumptions along when reading about the behavior of a CEO.  I contend that the reality of the person behind the curtain is far different from what is portrayed.  That is to say, at least with respect to how CEO's typically want to be viewed in terms of corporate responsibility, I suspect that the reality in the executive suites is far different.  In fact, the reality can be downright childish.  Richard Fuld, who was the CEO at Lehman Brothers, may well have behaved like a six year old when upset. Had the general public been given a view of Fuld's antics, we would have shaken our heads not simply out of utter disbelief that such immaturity could be in such a position, but also in recognition of the gap between public and private persona.  Such a gap is dangerous in a republic wherein the electorate is to hold the government in check (and the government in turn is charged with protecting the public and the market system itself from being compromised from firms too big to fail). 

One might argue that Richard Fuld was an exception--protected at Lehman by an enervated or compromised corporate governance system. One could point as well to Mark Thain, the CEO of Merrill Lynch, who in over-extended early morning merger talks with Ken Lewis, the CEO of Bank of America, was preoccupied with the matter of executive compensation. Merrill Lynch would have gone bankrupt at the open of business that morning, and Thain was pressuring Lewis to sign off on large bonuses for himself and his colleagues at the defunct Merrill Lynch. Even so, one could argue that Thain simply evinced a particularly selfish and greedy CEO who didn't have a good sense of priorities. What, then, if a group of Wall Street CEO's shrunk from responsibility even when the financial system itself may have hung in the balance?  It would not be a case of a rogue CEO acting narrowly in contradistinction to the example of J.P. Morgan in the panic of 1907.  Might it be that the age of corporate statemen had passed by the time of the crisis in 2008?  If so, might we be occastioned to taking mice to be men?  Such a practice would point to the need to recalibrate our standards.

On the weekend of September 13-14, 2008 before the Monday when Lehman Brothers declared bankrupcy and Bank of America agreed to purchase Merrill Lynch, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the New York Federal Reserve President Tim Geithner summoned the CEO's of the major Wall Street banks (except Fuld) to the Federal Reserve building in New York City.  Paulson and Geithner told the assembled executives that they needed to figure out how to save Lehman because if that bank were to go under, the financial market itself would stand a good chance of collapsing.  He reminded the assembled CEO's that the process would entail a domino effect wherein their respective banks would fall, one by one in quick succession. Incredibly, the CEOs were in denial on whether their established institutions could indeed fall; the status quo has such staying power. Furthermore, the CEOs were slow to view the viability of the financial market itself as their responsibility, in spite of the fact that their own self-interest depended on it.  Incredibly, on the Friday night and Saturday, they tried to figure out how their firms could profit from picking over Lehman's remaining assets.  On the Saturday morning, they resorted to doing impressions of Paulson and Geithner and betting on a computer game on one of their blackberries (you might want to re-read this last sentence, as it is so incredible that men of such power and responsibility would behave like teenagers--and at a time of crisis no less!).  Finally on Sunday, Barclays offered to buy the financially viable part of Lehman and proposed a consortium funded by the other banks in the meeting to support Lehman's debt.   Even though Barclays should perhaps have agreed to join the consortium, the other banks were on the brink of agreeing to contribute at least a billion each to the consortium--essentially propping up the mistakes of one of their rivals while letting another rival (Barclays) to walk away with the "good" Lehman.  The British government ended up refusing to allow Barclays to buy even the "good" Lehman, making the CEO's look good in comparison.

I have to give the CEOs credit for agreeing to the consortium. They would have been acting as a group as J.P. Morgan had acted in 1907.  However, the antics of the modern day CEOs during the first half of the weekend evince a childish behavior that is difficult to reconcile with men making millions a year and running firms too big to fail.  The financial system hung in the balance and the CEO's of the banks too big to fail were literally behaving like teenagers until Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan exercised some statesmanship (similar to JP himself in 1907) by stepping up to the plate and asking the other bankers to contribute a billion each too.

Diamond notwithstanding, I have to conclude that what we are led to believe concerning the men and women behind the CEO label is far too convenient for them may be inaccurate, and perhaps even manufactured as though a sort of brand management. Just as candidates for elected office are sold like shinny products, we may be under an illusion with regard to business "leaders."  Andrew Sorkin, author of Too Big to Fail, which is my source here (see pp. 330ff), said on a television interview that he (and we) didn't know much about what was going on in the banks during the crisis "because they didn't want us to know" (Tavis Smiley Show, PBS, 11/9/09).  That is, it is no accident, kein zufall, that we will likely remain asleep or ignorant to the nature of the man behind the curtain.  It is in the Wizard's interest that the curtain remain closed from our view. However, thainks to glimpses, we can investigate just who the people are who run firms too big to fail. It can perhaps be said that promotional processes from middle to upper management should be re-examined from outside of the executive suite.  I suspect that the extant promotions are too often simply matters of connections, friendships and power within management, rather than of maturity.

Here are to snapshots of modern American retail business:

1. “Are you a member of the store?”   Major bookstore chains, including Borders and Barnes & Nobels, refer to the customers who have registered for a discount card as “members of the store.”  Once while ordering a mocha at a Borders cafe, I was stunned when the clerk asked me if I was a member. "A member of what?" I asked. "Borders."  Stores have customers, not members, I thought to myself.  It seems presumptuous for retail sales clerks to think of customers as members, and elitist to distinguish members from non-members.  Moreover, it sounds fake to say that members shop; it is as if the people working in retail in are pretending that their store is somehow more than a store. It is the twisting of language here that is particularly of concern to me. As Borders faced bankrupcy and the closure of at least 200 of its stores in 2011, it occurred to me that part of the company's problem might be the way the stores were managed. For example, on another occasion while ordering a drink at a Borders cafe, the clerk asked me if I wanted a Borders reward card. I said "no thank you," but the clerk proceeded to ask me again, as if he had not already asked me.  He explained to me that the manager of the store had instructed the cafe employees not to take "no" for an answer until at least two. Ignoring the customers' answers if they are not what you want. Nice. So beyond the linguistic "creativity," I suspect that modern retail management, at least as evinced at Borders, has derailed into something rather toxic based on an excessive desire to manipulate not only language, but also human beings.

2. “Thinking outside the Box.”  The promotional statement going with the $4.99 cheeseburger and fries deal at Applebees.  If coming up with such a deal for a burger and fries represents thinking outside the box, I would hate to see what conventional business thinking is like.  I think it’s time that the blinders be returned to the horses.

Putting these two little case-studies of marketing mentality together, one might ask whether viewing customers as members represents thinking outside the seller-customer box.  Perhaps it does, but not by much and the box is pretty small. Moreover, supervening the club or social organization paradigm onto an impersonal store context seems contrived and ill-fitting.  That the seller ignores the contrivance just adds to the fakeness and underlying sordid character. Either it doesn’t represent thinking outside the box because it is a case of “overreaching” instead, or it must be admitted that thinking outside the box is not in itself a laudable quality.  Were I ever to be asked by a store’s clerk whether I am a member, I would reply, “no, I am a customer.”  Of course, I would probably then be asked whether I want an “upgrade.”  I understand that at Starbucks clerks refer to ordering a larger cup of coffee as an upgrade.  I suppose a window-seat is not included.  Anyway, I don’t think that pretentiousness makes for good selling, but that won’t stop the overreaching any time soon.  It is perhaps engrained in the modern sales psyche.