In matters of war

"The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike at him as hard as you can and as often as you can, and keep moving on"

Ulysses S Grant. American civil war general

"During war, laws are silent"

Cicero. Roman philosopher and statesman

  

"Let us be frank: provoking military-political instability and other regional conflicts is also a convenient way of deflecting people’s attention from mounting social and economic problems. Regrettably, further attempts of this kind cannot be ruled out."

Vladimir Putin. leader of Russia

"When the swords flash let no idea of love, piety, or even the face of your fathers move you."

Gallus Julius Caesar. Roman military leader

"I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest"

Napoleon Bonaparte. French general

"We made a great mistake in the beginning of our struggle, and I fear, in spite of all we can do, it will prove to be a fatal mistake. We appointed all our worst generals to command our armies, and all our best generals to edit the newspapers."

Robert E Lee. American civil war general

"It is certain that the two World Wars in which I have participated would not have occurred had we been prepared. It is my belief that adequate preparation on our part would have prevented or materially shortened all our other wars beginning with that of 1812. Yet, after each of our wars, there has always been a great hue and cry to the effect that there will be no more wars, that disarmament is the sure road to health, happiness, and peace; and that by removing the fire department, we will remove fires. These ideas spring from wishful thinking and from the erroneous belief that wars result from logical processes. There is no logic in wars. They are produced by madmen. No man can say when future madmen will reappear. I do not say that there will be no more wars; I devoutly hope that there will not, but I do say that the chances of avoiding future wars will be greatly enhanced if we are ready."

George S Patton. American World War 11 general

"One death is a tragedy, but a million deaths are a statistic"

Joseph Stalin. Russian World War 11 leader

"My Patience is at an end."

Adolf Hitler. Leader of Germany 1939

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On matters of hate

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.

James Baldwin

“Animals don't hate, and we're supposed to be better than them.” 

Elvis Presley

“In time we hate that which we often fear.”

William Shakespeare

“I hate you, God. I hate you as though you actually exist.”

Graham Greene

“People hate as they love, unreasonably.”

William Makepeace Thackery

“Those who hate rain hate life.”

Dejan Stojanovic

“September 11… I will never forget feeling scared and vulnerable… I will never forget feeling the deep sad loss of so many lives… I will never forget the smell of the smoke that reached across the water and delivered a deep feeling of doom into my gut… I will never forget feeling the boosted sense of unity and pride… I will never forget seeing the courageous actions of so many men and women… I will never forget seeing people of all backgrounds working together in community… I will never forget seeing what hate can destroy… I will never forget seeing what love can heal…”

Steve Maraboli

“See what's inside a drop of water. The whole seed of the universe. Come, come. See what's inside a drop of blood. The composition of life. It's all there. Hate as well. We approach the mystery of life, but it's impossible to understand the mystery of hate. The kind of hate that causes people not only to kill, but to want to erase you from the census of births. I have to concentrate on that mystery. Read everything there is. It has to be in a drop of blood. It has to have its chemistry.” 

Manual Rivas

“This is what you know about someone you have to hate: he charges you with his crime and castigates himself through you.”

Philip Roth

“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love.”

David Mitchell

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It seemed a good idea at the time

As I’ve wandered through the business landscape over the past 4 decades, I’ve often observed people making business decisions that I was pretty sure were going to end up somewhere between bad and appallingly, astronomically bad.  And I’ve certainly been guilty of making a few of those kinds of decisions myself.

Almost without exception, my bad decisions and those I’ve seen others make resulted from one of three things. The decision-maker: 1) didn’t bother to get all the relevant facts; 2) made invalid assumptions based on ego, wishful thinking, or fear; and/or 3) didn’t trust the input of their own advisors. As you read through the following, feel free to be entertained and feel superior – but I’d suggest you also take them as cautionary tales; great examples of what not to do:

1) How many zeros? In 1977, the senior execs at 20th Century Fox made an astonishingly short-sighted decision. They signed over all product merchandising rights for any and all Star Wars films to George Lucas – in exchange for a mere $20,000 cut in Lucas’ studio paycheck. The combined revenue from merchandising is estimated to have exceeded three billion dollars, and continues to grow annually, making it the most lucrative deal ever struck between an individual and a corporate studio in entertainment history. (This one is courtesy of my wonderful reader Dr. Ilona Jerabek, from an article on her website.)

2) And your hair’s weird, too.  In 1962, the Beatles auditioned at the London office of Decca Records.  The executive in charge of talent rejected them: he thought they sounded too much like a currently popular group called The Shadows (who?), and he told Brian Epstein, their manager, “We don’t like your boys’ sound. Groups are out; four-piece groups with guitars particularly are finished.” Well over 2 billion Beatles albums have since sold worldwide.

3) We’re a serious business, thank you very much.  In 1876, William Orten was President of Western Union WU +0.72%, which had a monopoly on the most advanced communications technology available, the telegraph. Orten was offered the patent on a new invention, the telephone, for $100,000 (worth about $2M in current dollars). He considered the whole idea ridiculous, and wrote directly to Alexander Graham Bell, saying, ”After careful consideration of your invention, while it is a very interesting novelty, we have come to the conclusion that it has no commercial possibilities… What use could this company make of an electrical toy?” Two years later, after the telephone began to take off, Orten realized the magnitude of his mistake, and spent years (unsuccessfully) challenging Bell’s patents.

4) Say cheese! The Eastman Kodak company developed the first digital camera in 1975, then proceeded to sit on it (and the core technology for the cell phone, as well).  They decided not to develop it because they were afraid it would cannibalize  their film business (at one point they had a 90% share of the US film market.)

5) Say cheese, part II. In the early ’80s, Fuji entered the US film marketplace with lower-priced film and supplies, but Kodak management believed that US consumers would never abandon their homegrown brand. In 1984, Kodak passed on the chance to be the official film of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Fuji won the rights, which gave them the strong foothold they needed to catalyze their growth in the US marketplace.

Kodak never fully recovered from these and other poor decisions; in 2012 the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

6) Did anybody phone home? In 1981 Amblin Productions called the Mars Company and offered a simple cross-promotional opportunity: How about if we use M&Ms in our new film, giving you free publicity, and in return, you can promote our film in your packaging? The advertising and marketing folks at Mars said “No.”  The film was ET the Extra-Terrestrial, and the rest is history.  Reeses Pieces, the not-nearly-as-well-known M&M competitor, saw sales jump 65%  in the months after the film was released featuring their product.

7) Hot under the collar.  In 2000, Gerald Levin, the chairman of Time Warner, was so confident in the deal he had made to merge with America Online, that he decided to forego placing a collar on the transaction. A collar enables the seller—in this case Time Warner—to revisit the terms of the transaction if the buyer’s stock falls below a certain price. Almost as soon as the merger was announced, and before it was completed, the Internet bubble burst and AOL shares plunged 50%. Without a collar, Time Warner wouldn’t be able to renegotiate the deal. Time Warner execs urged Levin to re-think the deal, but he didn’t.  The rest is history, and Time Warner shareholders are still paying for his stubbornness.

Of course, it’s easy to see the folly of these decisions in retrospect; hindsight is 20/20, and no one can make the right decision all the time.  But I suspect if each of these unfortunate executives had approached these decisions with a little more curiosity, a little more open-mindedness, and a little less certainty about the rightness of their position….we might all be using Western Union Kodak smartphones.

By Erika Anderson