Restructuring: that’s one way the recent wave of take-overs, breakups, and buyouts of major US corporations has been described. Others see it in more pejorative terms. “Violating the rules of prudence” said a Wall Street Journal editorial. “The buyout bomb,” The New York Times called it. “When everything’s for sale, you lose something,” is the...
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September 1, 1988April 21, 2022Correspondence
Excellence Revisited
A flyer plugging yet another “excellence book” hit my “in box” recently— another reminder of the infatuation of American business with the “pursuit of excellence.” We passionately love success, just hate second place, and truly disdain failure. The drive to excel provides rewards both psychic and material—no question. But I believe it also harbors a...
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January 1, 1987April 21, 2022Correspondence
A New Bottom Line
In his provocative book Ideas Have Consequences, Richard Weaver offered some poignant observations regarding modern times. Western man, he wrote, has fallen prey to a “falsified picture” of the world, characterized by materialism and an egotism which assumes that “man’s destiny in the world is not to perfect himself but to lean back in sensual...