My first real exposure to a "senior management" approach and style was Vinnie Loud at Salomon Inc's Phibro division (the commodities trading side). Vinnie was born and bred Brooklyn and lived up to his name. He's a wonderfully insightful, intelligent soul whom I was fortunate to have as a mentor when I was younger.
I often tell people that I did my undergrad in the "Vinnie Loud School of Management" and then did my graduate studies in MBM. I mean no disrespect to Vinnie when I say that I had some "unlearning" to do of the former "school" in order to succeed in the latter. But some of Vinnie's most basic mental models were remarkably consistent with MBM.
Vinnie could cut a terrifying figure at times on a trading floor. He would yell across to me: "Kid! Have I fired you yet?" with alarming regularity. When I finally got the courage to talk to him about it, what seemed threatening turned into a great learning moment. He told me, "Look, whatever worked yesterday ain't gonna work tomorrow - but look at you - you're still acting like we was yesterday."
"You gotta fire yourself regularly - then imagine you showed up as the new guy who just got hired to replace you - you know - you the old guy... What would that new you do differently, with a new set of eyes, than the old you's been doing? That gets you thinking - get's you fired up instead of fired out! You might even come up with somethin' that makes us money. Speakin' of which, get back to work. And until you start firing yourself everyday I'm gonna do it for you. And don't take too long, kid - at some point I'm gonna drop the metaphor, if you catch my drift."
Now I talk about Vision, innovation, the challenge process, creative destruction... they're more nuanced and more powerful models. But Vinnie's lessons keep me focused and motivated to apply those models effectively.
Hello everyone...looking forward to using this site!
Posted by: Amber Kelps | 26 October 2010 at 12:38 AM