CREATING BUSINESS BIOGRAPHIES: HOW BUSINESSPEOPLE SELL THEMSELVES AND THEIR MOTIVATIONS
ABSTRACT
This paper explores unspoken rules for success in business. Creating a back-story is a required tool for businesspeople. Stories self-motivate, encouraging tenacity when one fails or feels discouraged. Stories are also used to create a public persona, inspiring trust. Defining thematic tropes reveals narratives as tools providing a necessary and dynamic ingredient to chasing, having and reflecting upon success.
1.0. INTRODUCTION
I started selling residential real estate because I wanted a challenging career that did not require me to sit in a cubicle all day. I also wanted a position with high earning potential and the opportunity to use my customer service background. I found a lot of my first customers at the bar where I worked, and I parlayed many discussions into real estate pitches after a few drinks. I made a lot of mistakes and felt insecure about my experience in the field, so I tried to mould my past experience into something relevant by saying that I had ten years of customer service. When pressed, would reveal that my actual experience was slinging drinks. Because of this, I had to prove myself by working hard.
I moved into commercial real estate because my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer and asked me to help him. It never occurred to me that I was following in his footsteps. As a child, I had a very mediocre opinion of his profession, as he was always working and often emphatically frustrated. Ironically, I began working all day and night, mimicking my father’s work ethic.
After two years of doing both, I finally quit my job as a bar-tender and I found I worked much harder for myself than I did for my employer. My clients are sophisticated investors vastly familiar with transactions, so knowing what I’m doing is imperative. Yet, being a great realtor isn’t only in the details; it is also in the ability to sell ones’ self.
Luckily, a colleague coached me on how to frame my credentials in a more reliable way. I noted that he had previously been a day trader and was in terrible debt—his creditors harassed him, even threatening his life. Despite this, he was entirely confident. I had more clients and experience, but he was making more money. He reminded me that my father had been in real estate for over thirty years. My brother also has over ten years of experience. Real estate was my family rite and I had a real reason to be confident. Through this understanding, I shifted my perspective from focusing on my work experience to emphasizing my inherited rite as a realtor. My family’s reputation usually gives me automatic credibility, and I deflect attention away from myself through a progression of conscious decisions. When working with clients, I discuss my family and the deals I’ve closed to avoid divulging much of my personality, or previous work experience.
This essay gave me a chance to think about the unspoken rules for success and to read eight business biographies about eight very successful businessmen. What I found in these texts are some methods businesspeople use to define themselves through biography. This act of creating a back-story is a required tool for businesspeople, a technique that is used for many reasons. Stories self-motivate, encouraging tenacity when one fails or feels discouraged. Without a worthwhile justification, one would certainly quit. Stories are also used to create a public persona, inspiring trust. As professional qualifications, these success stories reversely portend a certain success and reinforce clients’ expectations. The success or failure of the story means the beginning or end of a relationship. In this way, the teller must listen closely and choose which story to tell, editing for the sake of the listener. As so, the business biography genre is an extremely dynamic form of life narrative, since one’s livelihood depends upon it.
The business biography section in most bookstores is usually buried between financial self-help books and business manuals and is typically not very extensive. Many subjects piece their lives together in multiple volumes, written after a significant number of events have occurred, which assumedly assists in furthering their career. Most cover photos are of the subject: a man in a smart business suit with a conservative tie, taking a Superman-like stance with his eyes gazing into the distance. A cursory glance at the business section may give the casual browser the impression that all business biographies are the same. A closer look reveals a variety of covers: vistas and logos, patterns and silhouettes. These differences reveal nuances within the genre and denote just as many routes to success, though all call upon similar sources.
The form for business biographies harkens back to Benjamin Franklin’s The Autobiography. Though it is a secular text, there is a sense of spiritual destiny. Retrospectively, Franklin begins the text by stating “thanks to Providence” (16), hinting that he was helped along the way. Reinforcing this idea is the fact that on his way to Boston, he meets the right people and stumbles toward success. When he wanted to leave a place, “a boat came by” (38). Powerful friends happen to be around him and offer to fund his printing business. As a boy, he is a leader among boys. His father is an arbitrator, “frequently visited by leading men who consulted him…and who showed a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice” (24). Franklin’s lineage destines him to become a leader among men.
Another source for the business biographical form is found in works by Horatio Alger Jr., a 19th century author who offered a prescriptive, formulaic approach to rising above poverty. Through his novels, he shows “how to” by example. In his first novel, the main character, Ragged Dick does not steal. He is naturally generous and values saving money and getting an education. Dick discovers a kind of karmic serendipitous generosity. In other words, good things seem to come his way because he is good. He values integrity, hard work, honesty and generosity above all else. These themes hearken back to the Golden Rule in Christianity (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you (Mathew 7:12)) and are opposite to the Machiavellian ideal (the end justifies the means (Machiavelli, 1)) that most businesses seem to adhere to. Dick saves a boy from drowning, and his father gives him a new suit and offers him a job for “ten dollars a week [which] was to him a fortune, and three times as much as he had expected to obtain at first” (184). The introduction, written by Michael Meyer, poignantly comments,
For more contemporary readers who are more than a little wary and skeptical of the benevolence of American business practices, corporate values, and employer loyalties, the respectability that Dick achieves at the novel’s end may seem like the beginning of a cruel joke. If Dick’s prospects of “fame and fortune” seem merely nostalgic and improbable, his actual principles—honesty, hard work, conscientiousness, hopeful expectations, and charity—are not. To laugh at those values, to dismiss them as naïve, unworldly and simpleminded, is to spurn genuine virtue and to wink at the rapacious villains of the piece who are the cheats, liars, and unscrupulous manipulators. His villains may seem more credible, but Alger’s heroes are worth remembering even if his readers are chastened by history. (xviii)
This distinction echoes in the American idealism evident in business’ aspirations, pathos and ethics. Through these values, Franklin and Alger offer modern business biographers a template from which to narrate their individual lives and illuminate themes that radiate through the genre. Primarily, Smith and Watson define the “bildungsroman” in their Fifty Two Genres of Life Narrative. This is a meta-genre for business biographies, where the author creates a story of “development and social formation of a young man” (189) and the “social formation unfolds through a narrative of apprenticeship, education in “life,” renunciation, and civic integration into bourgeois society” (101). This umbrella provides an understanding of business biography’s basic components.
Also evident in business biographies is a sense of being self-made. Smith and Watson quote Karl Joachim Weintraub as saying, “This heuristic device posits, on the one hand, the adherence of men to great personality ideals in which their culture tends to embody its values and objectives—and on the other hand, a commitment to a self for which there is no model” (127). The self-made man seemingly goes against this theme of “providence” and serendipitous generosity, or karma, since the originating site for modern success is increasingly internal.
The value of the individual or uniqueness of the product is extremely important for each of the subjects of the biographies, reinforcing Smith and Watson’s idea that “the importance of affirming an American identity drives many life writings” (104). Even if the source is not American, this effort to be different and to show oneself (or the subject) as having integrity is a highly rationalized and transparent process. Going along with this theme is the idea that nothing is handed to the subject. All of the subjects in the sample cite difficulties and trials, either failing or learning invaluable lessons. Subsequently, hard work is also very important. Also universally present is the theme that work must be fun.
Lastly, they all inherently offer a “master narrative,” even if they bluntly aver that their lives should not be followed as examples. Smith and Watson state, “such labeling of what is—or is not—representative is part of the cultural project of ‘naming, controlling, remembering and understanding’ that sustains the patriarchal, and imperial, power to produce “knowledge” about the world” (116). The authority of the master narrative in business biographies is assumed since only one interested in the subject’s path to success would read such a work. Further, if one is interested, emulation is inferred.
By considering what the audience gains from their text, the business biographer’s motives become evident. Through this lens, all eight subjects answered three questions: why, how and where, in either one way or another. This allowed me to group the narratives into templates, resulting in six sub-genres of business biographies.
The first two subgenres are the why, or primary motive for writing: the personality placement product or rationalizing success. These subgenres speak to the impetus for writing such a work. I paid particular attention to these first subgenres because the writers focused most of their time “selling their story” in this way and place great emphasis on why one should read the piece. Second, I noticed the where of the narrators, or the places in which their business selves originated. These origins are edited down to those incidents that support the purposes of the narratives. In his article, “Making, Taking, and Faking Lives: The Ethics of Collaborative Life Writing,” G. Thomas Couser discusses editing in terms of justice, noting the spectrum from supporting “the subject’s best interests” to “harm done by any misrepresentation” (338). The topics arrayed along this spectrum are discussed in the destined to succeed or destined to fail subgenres. I also noticed the how of defining particular business approaches. This is defined in the gut/ heart/ intuition or caution subgenres. The last subgenres include works that describe how money self-motivates: money for the greater good or money for money’s sake.
2.0. THE PERSONALITY PRODUCT PLACEMENT TOOL
By creating a publicity tool, the subject of the biography is able to mediate or propagate a media worthy personality. Flowing into this subgenre gracefully is Len Lewis’ constant focus on the bright side of Trader Joe’s’ business. The supermarket chain, Trader Joe’s, was started by Joe Coulombe in 1967 and was prompted by the idea that people wanted better groceries. In 1978, Aldi, a European mega grocer, bought out Coulombe and applied its principles to Trader Joes, bringing lower-cost, high-quality products to its customers.
Lewis glorifies Aldi’s mantra; “cheap is beautiful, stinginess is cool, and Aldi is cult…a place for treasure-hunting customers where chauffeur-driven limousines vie for space with more pedestrian vehicles” (27). Trader Joe’s’ commitment to employee satisfaction is also emphasized—high pay, great benefits, and the request that all new employees are asked: “at the end of 30 days, if you’re not having fun, please quit” (13). Lewis goes on to relate how happy employees make happy customers and lauds Trader Joe’s’ marketing, calling it “retail anthropology,” where “not just understanding customers’ behavior but also what makes them tick” is of utmost importance (80).
Lewis congratulates customers who are “in the know” and reinforces their special relationship with the retailer. The retailer’s approach is a wink at the customer, and the customer’s purchase of the book reciprocates such intimacy. The obvious question of cooperation arises. How much money did Trader Joe’s give to the authors? How many books did they order for Christmas to send to their frequent customers? Lewis states in his acknowledgements, “and to a dozen other people (you know who you are) who prefer anonymity;” a sentence that speaks volumes about this no-flaws approach to the subject (199).
Similarly, Donald Trump’s personality placement product should be construed as what Smith and Watson term collaborative life narrative (191). His biography begins, “I don’t do it for the money. I’ve got enough, much more than I’ll ever need. I do it to do it. Deals are my art form…I like making deals. Preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks” (1). Trump’s language and tone are part of his persona, used to sell an image to the public.
As Trump’s collaborator, Tony Schwartz’s role is accentuated. Couser comments, “Autobiographical collaborations are rather like marriages and other domestic partnerships: partners enter into a relationship of some duration, they “make life” together, and they produce an offspring that will derive traits from each of them”(336). The lens of the collaborator is especially interesting since in 1996, Schwartz wrote What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America. The dust jacket states Schwartz “discovered the best teachers and techniques for inner development--and identified the potential pitfalls and false gurus he met along the way.” Schwartz went on a four-year soul-searching quest after his work with Trump, reportedly feeling depressed and confused. Schwartz’s experience prompts the follow up: is Trump a ‘false guru?’ How much of what Couser calls celebrity autobiography was present—where the subject is all-powerful and “can presumably have her pick of partners” (338)? How did this power struggle play into the process? Did Schwartz want to include parts of Trump’s private persona? Did blackmailing occur? Ultimately, is Trump’s true persona much worse—bad enough to send someone on a four-year soul searching expedition?
Likewise, Sam Walton’s collaborative biography launched him into celebrity status and popularized Wal-Mart’s secrets, legitimizing their monopolistic success. Largely regarded as a retail giant without a heart, Walton disputes Wal-Mart’s reputation: “Wal-Mart has actually kept quite a number of small towns from becoming practically extinct by offering low prices and saving literally billions of dollars for the people who live there, as well as by creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in our stores” (177). Yet, this idea (which is a rationalization) is mentioned only on one page. The bulk of the story sells Walton as a small town guy with hometown values.
Walton started his first retail businesses in small American towns. He is portrayed as unpretentious, down-to-earth and neighborly, reinforcing that by association, Wal-Mart is these things, too. The idea that Sam is just a regular guy who values humility and hard work comes through clearly: “I just don’t believe a big showy lifestyle is appropriate for anywhere, least of all here in Bentonville where folks work hard for their money and where we all know that everyone puts on their trousers one leg at a time” (8). As a discount retailer focusing intently on the bottom line, Wal-Mart needs to show it has the same values as their customers in order to retain their market-share and remain successful. Sam Walton’s collaborative autobiography, written with John Huey, uses an “I” point of view. It starts:
Forbes magazine named me the so-called ‘richest man in America’…The next thing we knew, reporters and photographers started flocking down here to see Bentonville, I guess to take pictures of me diving into some swimming pool full of money they imagined I had, or to watch me light big fat cigars with $100 bills while the hootchy-kootchy girls danced by the lake. (1)
By dismissing those interested in his money, Walton retains his humility and reinforces the idea that money hasn’t changed him. His billions have not made him conceited.
Like Trump, Walton’s language denotes personality in a geographically specific colloquial manner. As with Schwartz, an allusion is made that Huey wrote down exactly everything Walton said, in real time. Hermeneutically dependent, Huey and Schwartz become intimately woven into Walton’s and Trump’s personae, creating tension through the amounts which they projected themselves onto their subjects. Further, tone and language are collaboratively created to affect the desired public personality outcome.
Couser notes that “collaborative autobiography is inherently ventrioquistic . . .attributing to the subject a voice and narrative not originating with him or her—and that he or she may not have edited” (342). Couser cites a case where a writer edits out a subject’s speech impediment in his article, reversely proving this point. Kaplan distorts Sienkiewicz-Mercer’s cerebral palsy and “erases the disability that has so profoundly shaped its subject’s life” since Sienkiewicz’s language is “hypernormalized” (338). Further, Couser states that there are ethical considerations that must be weighed in the collaborative autobiography, since the subject is given more credit for the piece and the idea that “cheating, if done surreptitiously…is apparently acceptable when done openly” (342-344).
Notably, the fictitious character is usually created, not the biography of a real person. This idea of openly cheating is crystallized when seen through the lens of advertising, wherein the subject makes claims to support a public product. Truth or falsity creates a caveat emptor, or buyer beware disclaimer, whereupon the reader is responsible for fact checking and either accepting or rejecting the subject’s report. Yet, through twisting mistakes and turning them into assets, the subject is able to demonstrate his qualifications and garner faith in his abilities. By admitting one’s flaws, the reader/buyer is manipulated, since the rest of the story is less scrutinized after such an admission. This diversion deflects attention from the actual person, generates trust, and eases the rest of the telling.
Couser notes that Rosemary J. Coombe "has argued that celebrity identity is authored collaboratively and collectively, rather than individually. Nevertheless, in the marketplace, the celebrity has the advantage of licensing his/her own replication” (346). This presumes the celebrity is either reinforcing a publicly desired persona or creating a directed publicity tool, begging the question of—which came first: the individual (celebrity) or the image (persona)?
Further complicating this dilemma is Richard Branson’s autobiography and his version of the truth. He talks about creating Student, a newspaper he started in high school, which is ultimately his credential for writing the book. The reader relies completely on Branson’s memory throughout the course of his biography. It is likely others who were present have completely different versions and conclusions. Couser states, “autobiographers, interestingly, are generally not viewed as obliged to research their own lives; the presumed subjectivity of the genre gains them a degree of latitude” (340). Furthermore, Branson starts with a dramatic goodbye letter to his family as he departs upon an extremely risky hot air balloon trip. The first portion of the book is a diary excerpt from this flight. Branson also references many interviews and talks extensively about correcting misinformed journalists. Because of his celebrity status, the main sources for the work were likely transcriptions, pointing to Branson editing and interpreting, rather than writing his autobiography alone.
Smith and Watson note, “Sometimes narrators explicitly resist certain identities. Sometimes they obsessively work to conform their self-representation to particular identity frames” (35). As an adventurous thrill seeker, Branson’s approach to life is now or never. In this way, he appeals to individuals, encouraging them to live similarly. This also translates into the Virgin brand perception of unique, innovative products, even though they are selling popular music (Janet Jackson, Phil Collins, The Rolling Stones) and the golden days of air travel. Branson is a rock star. Rock stars buy and fly Virgin. The persona he projects is that anyone can be a rock star, as long as one remains an individual. Yet, by adhering to the Virgin brand, consumers of this lifestyle are following an example and acting like sheep rather than retaining their individuality. Additionally, Branson’s creations exist because he insists they exist. He edits, fusing together collective memory, keeping what he agrees with and discarding the rest.
2.1. Rationalizing Success
Smith and Watson state, “the memoir directs attention more toward the lives and actions of others than to the narrator” (198). Using this form, Gary Erickson, founder of the Clif Bar Company, follows this trend. His memoir starts with the day he walked away from $120,000,000 by not selling his company and explores the ramifications of having to pay his partner $60,000,000.
Over the course of his journey backwards, Erickson recalls the creation of the partnership. Much of the book is about his regret over this decision, recalling at length the process of re-organizing the business alone. Without this development, it is questionable whether he would have ever thought so extensively about his business practices, nor written a book. Unlike the “Enrons of the world,” Erikson committed to his core values of environmentalism, corporate responsibility and retaining sole ownership of his company (156). He discusses his employees in terms of their rest and recovery needs rather than productivity. By rationalizing his success, he becomes the good guy in a corporate (read “bad”) world. Lastly, many of the chapters begin with a question, as if the author used a writing guide to create his story. This impels us to ask, how much of the story was prompted and how genuine are his responses? Erikson doesn’t cite sources. Could he be accused of plagiarism?
The Ben & Jerry story also follows this approach. Told by the company’s chief financial officer, Fred “Chico” Lager, it is clear that the road to success was not easy: “Ben was a taskmaster and a perfectionist who held everyone to incredibly high standards. He rarely passed out praise and was always focused on what was wrong or had fallen through the cracks” (150).
Though for the most part, the memoir presents a positive picture of the company, Lager is clearly frustrated by Ben’s stubbornness and absent owner mentality. Ben does not support Fred and often changes his mind just before a project launch: “Ben and I were actually standing in his office, watching a steamroller put down the finish coat of asphalt in the parking lot behind the plant when we realized that within a month we’d be ripping it up. “Do you think we should stop him?” Ben asked” (123).
Fred is tasked with running the business since Jerry sells his share of the company to follow a girl. Hence, the correct name for the brand should be Ben & Fred’s. Fred is the public relations representative when Ben replies to a reporter “I got no idea” when asked about the company’s capital spending over the next five years. Fred says, “I got a chance to edit Ben’s comments before they were printed and made him sound up to snuff on the financials” (125).
Fred’s is much like a survivor narrative (Smith & Watson, 205), where he acts as a buffer between Ben and the rest of the world. He uses the book to explain his belief in the product, his reasons for staying (even though he is abused) and his usefulness as Ben’s opposite. Fred focuses on his long-time friendship with Ben, telling him, “When you go, I go” (203). Yet, faced with Ben’s absenteeism, Fred’s expectation that Ben will eventually sell the company compels him to stay. Does the end justify the years of aggravation and abuse? Fred rationalizes his actions and believes that all was not for naught.
Despite being a jerk with poor people skills, an unwilling CEO, and a control freak, Steve Jobs’ coolness, passion and innovation make up for the bad. Couser says unauthorized “biographies do not have to be as flattering [as collaborative autobiographies]” (340). Jobs’ unauthorized biographer, Leander Kahney, is managing editor at Wired Magazine, author of The Cult of I-Pod and The Cult of Mac, and is best known for The Cult of Mac blogs. Kahney has built his career on analyzing Apple and its founders. Through this lens, his readers expect him to have a critical assessment of Jobs’ personality: “Steve Jobs has a reputation as the boss from hell, a terror-inspiring taskmaster who’s forever screaming at workers and randomly firing hapless underlings” (107). Kahney calls Jobs a “sociopath” (171) and gives accounts of employee public humiliation (166). With Freudian matter-of-factness, Kahney explains that Jobs’ fear and paranoia are the reasons for his aloofness (169). At Apple, getting “Steved” means being fired on the spot (33).
Although Kahney is very critical of Jobs, he is also very complimentary. He claims Steve Wozniak would be nothing without Jobs’ marketing genius, lauds Pixar’s managerial success and celebrates Jobs’ passion for design. In considering the reasons for Kahney’s Jekyl and Hyde approach (which, by the way, he projects on-to Jobs on page 167), his insults and focus on Jobs’ laws create an impression of a “balanced” approach to the subject.
Jobs believes he can change the world, “I want to put a ding in the universe” (150). Kahney rationalizes, “In everything Jobs does, there’s a sense of mission. And like any true believer, he’s passionate about his work. Yes, his commitment produces a lot of screaming and shouting…Jobs’s secret: it’s OK to be an asshole as long as you’re passionate about it” (151).
2.2. Destined to Succeed
Franklin and Alger encountered serendipity and success was somewhat out of their hands. This subgenre seems to teleologically create reasons for success based on heredity or inherent characteristics of one’s personality. This subgenre describes the biographies of Sam Walton, Trader Joe’s, Warren Buffett and Donald Trump. To avoid repetition, examples are given for the later two.
Buffett’s biographer has apparent admiration for his subject: “Let Europe have its princes; the American ideal has always been a self-made man from the mid country—a Lincoln, a Twain, a Will Rogers. In an age without heroes, this, too, is what Buffett’s disciples were seeking in Omaha” (xvi). The authoritative tone reveals the author’s desire to make history by putting Buffett in league with great American icons. This idea of “history in the making,” is noted by Susan Egan: “if American myths of self-realization emerge powerfully in the life narratives of this century, most are also conflicted and unresolved” (Smith & Watson 104). The conflicted and unresolved subject continues his quest for more success, driven by incompleteness. Buffett’s wealth accumulation is impressive, but is not enough. He continues to work, passionately chasing greater levels of success. Additionally, the demand for posterity strikes the reader as premature, since Buffett is still alive. In fact, the media is calling into question the entire fairytale account, as Berkshire Hathaway has not been spared from the current recession.
Regardless, Buffett has a natural propensity for making money and an inherited right to stock brokerage: “His first possession was a nickel coated money changer,” and “at an age when few children knew what a business was, Warren would get rolls of ticker tape from his stockbroker father, set them on the floor, and decipher the ticker symbols” (4). He invested in his first stock when he was 11 and his favorite pastime was dreaming up moneymaking schemes. In 1947, by the age of 17, he had delivered 600,000 newspapers and made an impressive $5,000.
Trump also demonstrates a propensity for earning wealth and a professional inheritance. His father developed and owned multifamily buildings in Brooklyn. At a young age, Donald learned to negotiate by accompanying his father to work sites. The boy collected bottles to illustrate his inherent industriousness. In the second grade, he gave his music teacher a black eye and in military school, he learned to “channel aggression into achievement” (73). He makes the distinction: “Most people who have the instincts [to be an entrepreneur] will never recognize that they do, because they don’t have the courage or the good fortune to discover their potential…I like thinking big. I always have. To me it’s very simple: if you’re going to be thinking anyway…think big” (46).
He discounts his father’s position as the biggest landlord in Brooklyn. He believes his success stems from being an overconfident leader. In fact, one of his critics says of Trump: “Trump has a great line of shit, but where are the bricks and mortar?’ I remember being outraged when I heard that…but looking back, I can see he was right. It could have all gone up in smoke” (107). Through this complication, Trump will not allow destiny to be the sole reason for his success. He is the reason. His perseverance and tenacity are what help him succeed, and his mistakes are part of his pre-destiny.
2.3. Destined to Fail
Conversely, there are those who cite their failures and shortcomings as reasons why they shouldn’t be successful, but are anyway. This category holds the remainder of the sample of biographies I read: Steve Jobs, Gary Erickson of Clif Bar, Ben & Jerry’s and Richard Branson. Most notable are the later two.
Richard Branson’s beginnings were meager. He was poor, dyslexic and nearsighted. He wet his bed, and was subjected to corporal punishment in boarding school. Though he was a promising athlete in football, a leg injury stopped him from playing. His often-visited dean tells him, “Congratulations, Branson. I predict that you will either go to prison or become a millionaire.” After a stint in prison he says, “I vowed to myself that I would never again do anything that would cause me to be imprisoned, or indeed do any kind of business deal that would embarrass me” (73).
Yet, he isn’t concerned with traditional success; “I certainly didn’t regard myself as a businessman. Businessmen were middle-aged men in the city who…were obsessed with making money” (43). He is also “unable to cope with” firing people, calling into question his leadership skills (55). Like Trump, Branson’s tenets for business (integrity, diligence and confidence) are the reasons he is successful, despite being destined to fail.
Likewise, Ben & Jerry were fired a lot. They weren’t interested in school, were horrible at sports, and “didn’t have a great deal of confidence” (2). As hippies who rebelled against authority, and were skeptical about business (55), they also seem destined to fail. When they decided to go into business together, they both committed to contributing a $4,000 investment. However, they irresponsibly spent $2,000 on a sailboat, even though “neither had sailed before” (13). Despite their destiny to fail, their hard work prevailed. Ben and Fred “Chico” Lager “stopped going home and were sleeping on the floor in the office or catching naps right in the production room” (122).
2.4. Gut/Heart/Intutition-Based
The next two subgenres speak to the subject’s motivation for success. By betting on their products, they use their intuition to know what will work. Ben & Jerry’s, Gary Erickson, Branson, and Walton’s, Steve Jobs and Donald Trump fit into this subgenre. Examples of the last two are offered here.
It would seem that Steve Jobs errs on the side of caution. Yet, when he picks a product to back, he markets it in a secretive manner, lending an air of mystique to the product itself. This is very risky because consumers are being told what to want, rather than being asked. Jobs’ business practices resonate with Henry Ford’s, who famously said, “If we had asked people what they wanted, they would have said, a faster horse.”
Apple relies heavily on prototyping and Steve Jobs demands that employees are experts at what they do so he can rely on their advice. Ultimately, product picking falls completely on Jobs’ shoulders. He knows which ideas will work and knows intuitively how to successfully market the products he picks.
Likewise, Trump says, “Listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper” (29) and Erickson: “You have to trust your gut” (121).
2.5. Caution
On the other side of the fence, the biographers of Buffett and Trader Joe’s employ expressly cautious modus operandi: “From the start, Warren was cautious beyond his years. When he learned to walk, it was with his knees bent, as if ensuring that he wouldn’t have far to fall” (8). Buffett only trusts numbers and is too logical to be religious: “such un-tempered logic can only lead to one terrifying fear—the fear of dying. And Warren was stricken with it” (13).
Logically, it would seem that he uses money as his legacy, but he is stingy with his children: “He was so wary of spoiling his likable kids with “food stamps”…when the Graham group debated what was the “right amount” to leave one’s children, Buffett said a few hundred thousand ought to do it” (335). This seeming contradiction that “where money was involved he was impersonal and at arm’s length, as though his kids were merely junior financial partners” is reinforced by multiple examples (335). Buffett fears his children will have a poor work ethic and he believes that to have a fulfilled life, one must work hard. Stinginess, therefore, further illustrates his cautious nature.
Likewise, Trader Joe’s administrators have a very measured approach to merchandising. They rely heavily on a regimented market testing system before investing in any product. There are multiple stages involved in adding a new product to their stores and all include heavy customer feedback.
2.6. Money for the Greater Good
After working hard, the ‘end result’ is a weighty factor in continuing business and citing success. What a company or individual does with money motivates and reinforces their efforts. Trader Joe’s, Gary Erickson, Richard Branson and Ben & Jerry’s all place in this category. Here, I offer examples of the latter two.
For Ben & Jerry’s, the motivating factor for their business is encapsulated in their mission statement: “Business has a responsibility to give back to the community from which it draws support” (36). A crucial moment for Ben comes when he verifies his business practices are “consistent with his personal values, even if they didn’t conform with the traditional notions of how a business should be run” (57). Because of their perceived responsibility, Ben & Jerry’s initiates multiple social programs. They donate one percent of their pre-tax profits to charities. They fund a partnershop where the profits go to drug counseling. Without rationalizing his success, it is unlikely Ben would have continued doing business.
Likewise, Richard Branson’s motivation is defined as follows: “I can honestly say that I have never gone into any business purely to make money. If that is the sole motive, then I believe you are better off not doing it. A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts” (43). Personal fulfillment is more important that monetary gains. In 1990, he flew into Baghdad and rescued hostages. When he returned, he spoke about being: “--at an all-time low. I’d seemed to have run out of a purpose in my life. . . I was seeking a new challenge…to have time to try to use my business skills to tackle issues that I felt I could help, such as attacking the cigarette companies, cervical cancer, etc” (231). This sense of social responsibility allows him to continue in business.
2.7. Money for Money’s Sake
Reversely, Trump does not cite specific philanthropic motivations for his business practices. In fact, he says he spent the first twenty years of his career “building, accumulating, and accomplishing things that many said could not be done” (367). Though he acknowledges the need to give money, he says, “Giving time is far more valuable than giving just money” (336). His self-described motivation for working is to “Have fun. I don’t kid myself …Money was never a big motivation for me, except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game” (63). Trump talks about wanting to “figure out some creative ways to give back some of what [he’s] gotten” (367). It is possible he would argue that his televisions show, The Apprentice, is a philanthropic effort wherein he gives time, rather than just writing a check.
Similarly, Buffett is “fair but not overly generous” (255) and lives in the same house he bought for $31,500 in 1958. He does his own taxes, drives his own car, and lives well beneath his means. He is a famously frumpy dresser, and his biographer asserts that he uses money as a way of living longer.
Yet, he has trouble picking his own social causes and sees philanthropy as a kind of unearned charity. In 2006, he donated ten million Berkshire Hathaway stocks, or $31 billion, to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This money was only donated under the conditions that the money not be taxed, either Gates must be alive, and the full amount must be spent over ten years (gatesfoundation.org). Buffett is on the foundation committee and helps direct the charitable funds, emphasizing his desire to control the flow of money. This echoes back to Buffett’s father’s words, “you are not required to carry the whole burden, nor are you permitted to put down your share” (11). This also hearkens back to the way he treats his children and reinforces the theme that sloth is a cardinal sin.
Believing that industriousness is a virtue and money is for accumulating rather than philanthropy, Sam Walton says “no one owes anybody else a living” (184). His brother Bud says of him “When a penny is lying out there on the street, how many people would go out there and pick it up? I’ll bet I would. And I know Sam would” (5). A colleague says of Walton,
Money is, in some respect, almost immaterial to him. What motivates [Sam] is the desire to be on top of the heap. It’s not the money. Money drives him crazy now. His question to me at 6 A.M. not long ago was “How do you inspire a grandchild to go to work if they know they’ll never have a poor day in their life? (9)
The reason for Walton’s book is to warn his grandchildren—if they ever start being frivolous with money, he’ll haunt them. Money is the fruit of hard work. Money without work equals laziness, revealing that accomplishment is in the journey toward accumulation. Though he gives back to his employees, I have never heard of anyone getting rich from working at Wal-Mart. In fact, its philanthropy is famously performed for its public image rather than for the greater good.
3.0. SUMMARY
These methods for arriving at success are based on the subject’s projected image and deeply depend on the type of business one is engaged in. For example, Warren Buffett inspires trust from investors predominantly because he came from nothing and knows the value of a dollar (personality product placement). He has always been interested in the stock market and making money, and his father was a stockbroker (destined to succeed). He is level headed and trustworthy with his investments (cautious), but his caution reveals his belief that wealth accumulation (money for money’s sake) will fend off death. Similarly, each biography emphasizes different things, depending on audience and is edited with the reader/buyer in mind.
Through their business success, each of the subjects arrived at a persona for their own motivation and for their clients’ and colleagues’ consumption. These hybrids of the subgenres are determined by circumstance and ambition. They seem to change after plateaus of success are reached, perhaps even echoing farther back, the more successful they become. Like most of life writing, business biographies change over time and are edited depending on one’s future goals. Likewise, the juxtaposition between the ‘end justifying the means’ and ‘doing unto others’ melds into a thematic device whereby the subject is able to recount their path to success.
To suggest that these biographical accounts are exterior from the individual—a mask they wear at work—would be to take the separation too far. By embracing the things that support the image they’d like to portray, what is left out is intentional and schematic. If anything, this study demonstrates that the personal is definitely part of business since narration is a tool providing a necessary and dynamic ingredient to chasing, having and reflecting upon success.
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