Archive for January, 2010
Hamilton, Washington and Partnerships
One of the other things that struck me while reading about Alexander Hamilton was how much more effective he was while working with George Washington than without. For most of Hamilton’s career, he functioned in one way or the other as Washington’s #2, his COO so-to-speak. In the Revolutionary War, he was Washington’s “aide-de-camp” but had so much of the General’s confidence that he was given great liberty to execute orders, issue new directives and command other generals. Later, in the White House, he again functioned as a quasi-vice president. The roles and offices hadn’t been developed and Washington’s executive team included John Adams as Vice President and then secretaries of War, Treasury and State.
But, given Hamilton’s wide-ranging views and interests, and given the necessity of developing things like customs offices and the importance of tariffs and taxes to government revenue and thus to the overall functioning of the government, Hamilton’s reach extended well beyond what you might define as simple the stated responsibilities of Treasury.
Although many people viewed Washington as Hamilton’s tool, the truth was that the General exercised a calming and moderating influence on Hamilton and further exercised independent judgement when and where it counted. The net result was that together Hamilton and Washington were an incredibly effective team. Washington’s executive air and his wisdom quelled the more aggressive Hamiltonian tendencies that were to manifest themselves later.
Three Spheres
I was talking to a friend a few weeks ago and he commented that he knew an executive coach that talked about three spheres that needed to overlap to have professional success. I’m not sure if Andrew used the word “spheres” but I’m thinking about them as overlapping circles. A venn diagram if you will.
So those three spheres are
1. Your interests
2. Your skills or talents and
3. The market
All three of those need to be in harmony to achieve true professional success. And the point that was made was that too many people focused on only the first two and ignored the third. I’ve written previously that perhaps the most fundamentally strategic choice to make is your market. And that the rest is largely tactics. So I think there’s a lot of merit to the notion that optimizing not just for what you like and what you’re good at but, to put it crassly, what pays, is a good idea.
Many people have great little artisan ideas about one thing or the other. Maybe it’s making candles or something. But the point is that even if you’re smart and good at doing stuff and you’re really interested in candle making, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the candle making industry is something that will lend itself to high levels of Return on Investment.
Maybe you can see where I’m going with this. Much of the music industry is shrinking (from a revenue perspective). If the market is shrinking. If less money is being spent. That’s important. That’s a decisive consideration in things like if you want to start a new tech-focused music company.
Not saying it’s impossible. Just saying that shrinking markets lend themselves to consolidation and to one or two dominant players. If an ad-supported freemium subscription model is the format through which people will consume music in the future it’s perhaps unlikely that there are going to be more than one or two companies that survive.
And the real question is whether the money that’s added up is more than or equal to all the money that used to be added up for people paying for CDs and albums and going to concerts. My guess is that it’s not nearly as much (but I could be wrong). So if that’s the case, again, even if you’re really smart and talented and even if you’re really interested in the music industry, it’s worth a moment of pause if you’re thinking about working in it.
Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson
I used to write columns for the Cavalier Daily in college and I remember reading Shelby Foote’s The Civil War and wanting to write about the Battle of Chancellorsville. My editors were opposed to it mainly because they felt it was jumping the shark a little bit and because there wasn’t really an opinion behind the column besides the fact that Hooker lost his nerve and it was really an incredible upset on Jackson’s part. Writing about Alexander Hamilton now has that same feeling. What’s the point? I don’t know. But I find the guy fascinating. I had a vaguely negative impression of him based on my recollection of high school and the way he came across in the John Adams mini-series on HBO. Clearly, I’m not an academic on the Founding Fathers.
At any rate, I just finished Ron Chernow’s wonderful biography on this incredible figure in American history and I feel compelled to jot down some things that I found interesting, as is my wont and my luxury. There are a bunch of historical ideas that hadn’t formed in my mind and then two or three broader life/business/professional themes that I took from his life as well.
If you’re not familiar with Hamilton, I encourage you to read this book. It presents a fascinating portrait of a complicated man and, importantly for me, it presents a radically different portrait of some figures that I’d only viewed positively in the past, namely Thomas Jefferson, who I know view as an important but necessary evil in our history. That’s only as of right now but still. Based on Chernow’s portrayal, he is not the man that has been canonized at my alma mater, The University of Virginia.
Some specific observations about Mr. Jefferson below:
