When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.

- Nietzsche

Do not value money for any more nor any less than its worth; it is a good servant but a bad master.

- Alexandre Dumas, fils

On public radio this weekend, a financial industry expert mentioned two places where Lehman and other big-firm staff might end up: (1) in the offices of boutique firms that can get top financial expertise for a lot less money, and (2) in the offices of growing firms that want to harvest the wisdom of people who have experienced the tragedy (as bystanders, Cassandras, or perpetrators).

Interesting, then, to see the following job ad:

Quantitative Trading Strategist

Description:

Must be currently in a similar role at one of the following firms: Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley.

Responsibilities:

* Development of new models and trading strategies as well as improving existing strategies
* Senior level, revenue producing role within a top Fixed Income alternative investment firm
* Support Portfolio Manager requests for strategy analysis, new trade pricing, and risk monitor tools
* Real time analysis of Risk, P&L, and trading opportunities

[snip]

Note the emphasis on must and currently.  I wonder if the recruiter assumes that anyone left at Lehman, etc. must be the best of the best?

In any case, the management point is this:  while Lehman as a whole package is clearly in the tank, many of the people inside Lehman (currently and formerly) have plenty to offer.  This includes the ones who had a hand in the failures, if they’ve been good observers and have learned from the experience.

Politics is like baseball. If your team loses, you remember who struck out in the ninth inning, not who struck out in the fourth.

– Howard Fineman, on McCain and blame assignation for the 2008 Wall Street meltdown, in Bailout ushers in the era of Obama, MSNBC, 29 September 2008.

I mention this not to speak about the financial crisis, but rather to remind folks not to manage like sentiment in politics and baseball.  When you’re toting up the contributions of your staff, look at how they’ve all done, over time.  Not just at who’s in the doghouse (or the spotlight) at the moment you’re doing the math.

A macroeconomist once told me that the two institutions with the longest investment horizons were university endowments and the Vatican.

From Kevin Davis at Bull City Rising, an interesting intro to his article on what the Citi buyout of Wachovia may mean to Charlotte:

Try to imagine, if you will, how it would feel to see a news story like this one cross the wire services:

Posted at 9:19pm on July 24, 2013

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The trustees of Duke University announced today a breathtaking combination with Princeton University in the latest reverberation from the higher education market collapse.

The takeover, valued at $8.7 billion (U.S.), comes on the heels of last week’s Johns Hopkins-University of Chicago merger.

The Duke-Princeton deal, like the activity in Baltimore last week, was brokered at the eleventh hour by Federal regulators at the U.S. Department of Education concerned about the financial stability of another one of the country’s most prestigious universities.

“This is an important step in restoring American’s confidence in our higher education system,” said Secretary of Education Dan Quayle.

It’s utterly impossible to picture — and no, I don’t mean the bit about Quayle being secretary of education.

For better or worse, a university town has some immunity to the economic pain that afflicts the private sector.

Remainder of article here.

There will have to be rigid and iron discipline before we achieve anything great and enduring, and that discipline will not come by mere academic argument and appeal to reason and logic. Discipline is learnt in the school of adversity

- Mohandas Gandhi

I probably shouldn’t be quoting this, but here you go

Consultants have credibility because they are not dumb enough to work at your company.

– Scott Adams

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

–Theodore Roosevelt

I’m sure you’ve seen this quote before. I had been looking for it in the last months, and stumbled across the first paragraph a few days ago. Looking for the full text of Roosevelt’s original speech, I was happily surprised to see it quoted and pointed to by sales consultant Greg Bennett. In his blog post on emulating Teddy Roosevelt, Bennett says:

One of the great secrets of sales (one most people never learn until very late in their career)…is that if you seek only peace and tranquility in sales through playing it safe, you’ll end up with neither…the key to peace and tranquility is to boldly venture into the challenging, scary…aka strenuous…areas…THAT is how you find peace, joy and tranquility.

Discomfort is often a sign of something good.

If you haven’t visited the library since you were in college, you have no idea what you’re missing.  Here are some things I’ve done at the library in the past six months:

• downloaded data from ReferenceUSA with contact information for 500+ potential qualified clients for one of my clients (criteria: plumbing companies with revenue >$5MM, “A” credit rating, sorted by metro area).

• copied sample business plans and checked key business ratios for a retail client who wanted to set reasonable targets for sales per employee, advertising expenditures, etc.

• searched several hundred online business journals for background information to fuel a proposal.

All free, of course.

Which libraries to visit?  Public universities with business schools have the best libraries.  In most states, these libraries (and their business reference librarians) are supposed to help the public, not only their university constituents.  Public libraries in major cities are also great resources, with free access to many of the same databases that you can’t get to without a subscription.  (Note that many of these databases are at least partially-accessible from your own office after the library gives you remote access privileges.)  They often have decent business reference librarians, as well.  Public libraries in smaller metro areas often have less, but you might be surprised at how much good stuff they do tie into over the internet.

When you need data — don’t guess.  Get thee to a library.

Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.

– unknown author? I saw this attributed to Teddy Roosevelt but that strikes me as so odd that I won’t repeat the credit. But I will at least repeat the phrase, which makes a lot of sense.

Not long ago I met two people who said you have to like helping people if you want to succeed as a service professional.

It may also be true that you ought help your customers know your intentions.  To let them know (through actions and not words), that you really care about their happiness.  Is this “just” some kind of psychological marketing trick?  I don’t think so.  Especially if you believe that you’re really creating a win-win that lets you help them to the greatest of your abilities.

By the way, this isn’t just true in relationships with customers.  It counts just as much, if not more, in relationships with co-workers who you see every day.