Lewis Schiff Quotes

MBA programs are underwritten by large companies and they succeed at producing future employees of large companies. In that regard, they are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing.

If the question is, how do we best produce business people who can succeed in the post-Great Recession era, then I think the MBA programs and their connection to large companies remains intact but it's not the path to a "Business Brilliant" life. It's a path to a middle-class existence marked by large stretches of security and comfort with occasional eruptions that you're probably ill-prepared to handle. Do I sound too cynical?

I also believe that at a critical point (more than six people?), that collective wisdom turns into group think.

Harkening back to a story about my grandfather, I was lucky to attend a great high school in New York, Bronx High School of Science, which has produced more Nobel prize winners than any other high school in America.

I think small groups have more collective wisdom than an individual.

Success doesn’t always look like what we think it looks like.

The bottom line: All of your investing decisions should be grounded in your own investment policy statement. By taking a "top-down" look at your finances and writing out a road map, your policy statement will add an important element of discipline to your approach.

I believe in labeling things.

One of the things all entrepreneurs struggle with is where their efforts will have the highest impact. Unfortunately, too many of us continue to do the very same things that led to our initial success because we're good at it and we've created and invested in systems to support them

The disruption caused by globalization and technology (what Tom Friedman calls hyperconnectedness) will be around for the rest of our professional lives.

That doesn't mean we should be doing it, though. We should always be carving back those things that are comfortable and institutionalized but not necessarily impactful.

If the workers don't keep themselves current - with some assistance and guidance from their employers - then the workers who are in the legacy roles will have to be removed. That's what's so difficult.

In the summer between my freshman and sophomore year, my grandfather got me a job at a local messenger company working on Wall Street. I was lucky enough to have been in the business during a stock market boom but just before the fax machine appeared on the scene, let alone email and the Internet. As a result, the messenger business was booming.

Apple makes computers and they have to be great at providing the product they promised every individual who wants to purchase from them. This is where they should spend the bulk of their energy.

I was never going to be one of Nobel prize winners.

I would have to say that my mother's entrepreneurial perspective, and that of her father's, are very evident in my own outlook.

Apple made tools that helped people express their creativity and Steve Jobs knew that so he told that story well. But Facebook makes tools that help people connect and Mark Zuckerberg is hardly a story-teller. Nevertheless, he's become a leader because his products do such a good job of solving a problem.

Because my college was a local college, it had a historic role in educating minorities and the tuition increase was viewed as an obstacle in creating more opportunity for minorities. I threw myself info the protests with all my heart. Ultimately, a group of us barricaded ourselves in the school for about 3 weeks so we brought the running of the campus to a halt.

However, there's nothing more inspiring than a company that does solve problems and those problems are captured as part of a larger story.

I did in fact take a couple of classes at my local college here in NYC. But I did it unwillingly and without enthusiasm. That is until a protest broke out in the streets around campus against rising tuition costs.

For example, I wear clothes I buy at trendy shops because I don't care much about clothing. If someone wants to create a trend around clothing, I'll happily and blindly follow.

While I did complete high school, I would have to say that it was by the skin of my teeth. My education ever since then has been one that I got "on the job" and I consider myself a very well-educated person at this point!

As you climb of the organizational ladder, you have to redefine your role in the value chain from player to captain to coach to manager, and for some, to owner. These are different roles and you won't be able to succeed as a manager when you're acting like a player.

By the time I entered this prestigious high school, my interest in formal education had already been exhausted.

In companies, there are three activities that should be labeled better. First there is the "CORE" which is the thing the company does that its customers pay it to do.

CEOs are no different than the guy in the mailroom. They all have to learn how to manage better the risk created by our increasingly risk-shifting world.

There are not enough forums where institutions invite their workers to share their failures in a constructive way so the organization can move forward.

I know a lot of great success stories of those who were excellent problem-solvers because they had found a need that they could fill well. As a result, they built organizations around them and those organizations had belief systems that could be described as a form of leadership.

The problem is not the sentiment, it's the execution. When a company makes a mistake, the individual benefits because they've learned how NOT to do something while the institution had to pay for the mistake.

However, I believe that large groups make markets, so serving the needs of large groups is a simple approach to success in business success. But that's no reflection on whether or not they're making wise moves or good calls. It's just about filling the need.

There is a direct line between the communications work I did to protest tuition increases at my school and what I do today. Plus it had one other benefit...it got me kicked out of college!

It's the "Success Paradox." When a set of behaviors has gotten you somewhere, you keep doing them even though the circumstances have changed.

I went to work at political consulting firms, graphic design and communications firms and ultimately, magazines. Today, my career is in the media business. And more specifically, I'm in the "words" side of the business as opposed to video or music.

I found that I loved producing that kind of propaganda and I loved the power that a few students with a Macintosh computer could wield. I was hooked on communications at that point.

I got to carve through the streets of New York's financial district and discover the awesome feeling of being part of a system where, the harder you worked, the more of those scarce resources you earned! I never looked back.

During that time, I began writing and designing the propaganda that we distributed to the students who we were trying to convince to join us.

When done right, working is a series of decisions that you make which allow you to refine and refine and refine your highest and best use. Ultimately, if you are lucky, you will find out where you belong.

As members of a minority, one that was often persecuted, that entrepreneurial perspective was burnished with a sense of "outsider" status - so not only were we committed to finding our own way of achieving success, we also grew up to believe that we'd have to fight to get whatever we wanted.

When I started out, I wanted to have everything solved by the time I was 30. That didn't happen. Instead, I realized that the journey is the destination, that the work.

I grew up in a modern business environment and did not experience the kind of prejudice that my mother and grandfather experienced.

The work I'm doing today gets me one step closer to the work I should be doing tomorrow. And that the way I learn this is by trying, failing, networking and experimenting. I'll stop doing that when I'm dead.

My fighting spirit has often seemed out of place.

I don't know if you hear this often but I would say The Razor's Edge (loosely based on a great W. Somerset Maugham novel). This was Bill Murray's first dramatic role so everyone thought he stunk in this deep character but I thought he and the movie were great. The movie takes place over decades so you see Murray's character go from goofy playboy all the way to wiser, older person. It's basically a movie version of the journey I described.

Still, it formed one of my basic beliefs about success which is this: most of the time, success can be measured in terms of how much more than others you have of something that's in short supply. This includes money, reputation, respect, etc.

Because I work with entrepreneurs who own businesses, I have found Doug Tatum's No Man's Land to be a really helpful body of working knowledge. It's very applicable to most businesses that have the usual problems of growing businesses - managing people, capital, markets, etc.

I've always wanted to get my share but, due to my tendency to overcompensate (work harder, push for the win more), I've ended up with more than my fair share. These are some of the life lessons I've drawn from watching my mother and grandfather struggle in the world compared to my own struggles.

On a personal side, I found Bo Burlingham's Small Giants to be a great window into how business can be an extension of social change and the critical role the entrepreneur plays in creating progress in society.

I believe that only a subset of us is meant to lead. The rest want to follow.

That being said, everyone of us can move a big step farther towards determining the direction of our own lives. We can all break free from group think. Some more than others. Most don't. Finding out who is who is great fun.

Thinking like others is ok for things that are not important to you.