Talking to our Future World Business Leaders

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I had the privilege of addressing the Executive MBA (EMBA) class at Colorado State University this week in preparation for their June trip to Russia. My book, “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia” is a textbook for this US/Russian MBA course, so they were well prepared and had good questions.

I covered what I call “the third side of the Russian coin” which really is the underlying thousand years of cultural influences on Russian thought, behavior, and therefore business. Much progress is being made, but there’s much more to be done.

We discussed particularly the present growing “Generation 3” as I call those who entered the great post-Soviet change fresh for the universities and institutes in the early 90s. And the present excitement and wonderment over the Skolkovo efforts to reinforce the great technology values in young Russia and bring it successfully and profitably onto the world market. The recent partnership with Silicon Valley is a cornerstone of that initiative.

To quote Alexis de Tocqueville on the subject of Russia and America: “Their starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.”

 From my experience in Russia, I am so happy to see this sincere interest in Russia from a leading American MBA program. I am glad to see CSU playing a part in this destiny. I am confident there will be good results.

Learn more. Buy here “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”

HELP A RUSSIAN?

Russians, like everyone else, need help once in a while. But, helping a Russian, they say, is like trying to save a drowning man who won’t give you his hand. I have surely had that experience at times. It is a pathetic experience, and so often one that I have a hard time getting past.

We all live in the same world and are here to help each other. But, the Russian often questions the motive of the one offering his hand. Once I had visiting me a man of notable achievements in the Russian film world. I had a contact in Hollywood who I offered to introduce to him. His response was, “Why would he want to help me?” The presumption was, of course, that the other man has his only his interest solely in mind. As Russia moves into the larger global stage, the individual will realize that, in addition to self-interest, there is a great value is simply helping others when its needed. That way, one finds his place in the global world of mutually beneficial relationships where things get done on trust.

How to work successfully with Russians, in these changing times, is covered from different angles in my book “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia.”

Buy here  “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”

What is it about Russian Women?~ Part 6, the “bewildered.”

And that brings us to the sixth category, the bewildered. In the early nineties I noticed the blooming female nouveau riche, superficially sophisticated lovelies in Prada and furs. They sipped cappuccinos in Café Mozart at the Radisson Slavanskaya with men who were convinced of their importance in the new get-rich-quick world. These women have now lived a fairy-tale life for ten years or so, shopping in Paris and parading down the posh avenues of world centers where their rich boyfriends would take them for entertainment while they stashed their ill-gotten riches in foreign banks.

 Even if these women had a university education and degrees in economics or science, they found themselves left out of the picture. As their male sponsors faced the unpredictability of Russian financial progress, bankruptcy or a bullet, the ladies drifted into other camps, or were dumped by their men for younger companionship. Now they look at their bold contemporaries, running advertising agencies or technology firms, and are standing on the dock watching their ship disappear over the horizon. They are bewildered, longing now to find a purpose, to get a life. Some may take the long step needed to find a place that will replace their earlier frivolous goals and bring them self-respect. Some have taken their credit cards and come to America, where, with some luck, they will find more secure, if not richer, life.

This is the end of my special series out of my book, Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia. You can back up on this web-site to read the earlier excerpts. Or you can buy the book at  “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”

Questions and comments are welcome anytime.

A Fragmented World?

 A few years ago I hired a guy to fix my Mac. He said he had to “defragment” the disk. So I learned about that. Then I got in my car to drive to LA and as usual KUSC (my favorite classical music station) was on the radio. A radio host asked a composer, “Why don’t modern composers write music we can hum?” I love music and thought that a very pertinent question. The composer answered “Because we live in a fragmented age.”

 Fragmentation has been going on for a long time according to the “big-bang” theorists. The concept of defragmentation, however, is relatively new, as any computer-literate person will tell you.  Personal mental defragmentation is required as surely as with the computer. The effects of the personal problem are often seen as excessive inattentiveness, impulsiveness and hyperactivity and have long medical names and suggested solutions. It is evidenced in lack of reading skills, disinterest in the values of art, music and the usual lessons of constructive life experience.

But, today’s communication technology also heralds positive change. And rather than be overwhelmed and intimidated by it, our challenge is to manage it constructively. We can turn this fear and confused human concept into productive and healing action in our lives. It is our choice. Take the time to read a good book and listen to good music.

Learning by Giving

I learn so much when I give a talk to groups about my books and my writing. The story I tell depends much on who it is told to. The audience determines my message, although sometimes there is still a surprise in there for me.

Recently, my talks and book signings are about my latest book “Dos Gringos,” the tale based on my immigrant Norwegian father’s escapades in the Mexican Revolution. Earlier it was, or still is, on my book “Walking on Ice – An American Businessman in Russia,” an account of my many years working and living in Russia. You can imagine the interests vary with the audience. But not always.

 Aside of the usual questions about the book, I often find interest in the writing process and how I personally evolved from a pure international business life to now writing novels based on my multicultural experiences in many lands. The audiences have expressed substantial satisfaction in the gatherings. In the process, I learn much, not only from the questions, but sometimes my own answers.

I enjoy the opportunity to interchange information with others. We all learn. Contact me via my Contact Page to discuss and schedule a talk in your area.

Buy here  “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

Coping with Change

We all are coping with change these days. The Russians are working the hardest at it. When I first went to Russia, just at the start of the Post-Soviet period, I put a bold sign on the wall by my Moscow office door. It read:

“It must be remembered
that there is nothing more difficult to plan,
more doubtful of success,
nor more dangerous to manage
than the creation of a new system [change.]
For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit
by the preservation of the old institutions
and merely lukewarm defenders
in those who would gain by the new ones.”
The Prince Machiavelli, 1513

My young Russians got the message. While the rest of the developed world maneuvered forward at warp speed, the Soviet Union, like a rusty supertanker with a dead man at the helm, plodded along to an inevitable collision with reality. There are those, even today, who liked it that way. Gorbachev didn’t know what he was doing when he grabbed the wheel and turned to starboard.
Russians seem to have a hard time getting up in the morning and to work on time. Marina had a particular problem; so much we changed her work hours to arrive at ten. One morning, about 10:20, she came into my office, still in her coat and her hair undone, apologizing for being late. “I just couldn’t wake up. I have three alarm clocks and a mother and still I am late. I don’t know what to do.”
I treated it lightly as she was usually conscientious. “Too many parties, Marina? What keeps you up so late?”
“I have to see my friends. We never have time any more. We used to visit during the day, on our jobs, and go to bed at a decent hour. But, we can’t do that any more. It’s terrible.”
Marina adapted. She toured America until she found a husband. Today they live near London with their lively kids.

Buy here  “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”

Business in Russia, Again.

“Doing business in Russia is like doing business anywhere else, but different.”

Now that I am getting involved with new ventures with Russians and/or on Russian soil, I am reapproaching all I have experienced and written about in my book, “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia” and measuring how things have continued to change. It seems the positive has become more positive, and the negative more negative. But there does seem to be hope. “Hope dies last in Russia” a respected business friend said once. The fact is the opportunity, if carefully developed, is there and promising.

Progess is inevitable, because that demarcation line between the old world and the new is every day moving upward. The line is now at about age 45 – those below are bringing new thought and energy to the Russian world. These younger Russians are well educated, experienced, responsible, and dedicated. Those over that line are to one degree or another still in the mindset of the past. That past is not just the Soviet past, but the autocratic past of a thousand years. But, even those in the younger group, have lots of inherited mindset to change. It is possible, I firmly believe, to be an effective, successful, responsible member of the greater world and still enjoy the honored cultural identity of being Russian. But, “In Russia, everything is difficult, and everything is possible.”

Buy here  “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”

About Leadership

There is so much talk and teaching about “management” in these changing times. However, there is a difference between “management” and “leadership.” My own world experience has taught me that under good leadership, a good team manages to get the job done. Yesterday I visited the Milken Institute to hear a talk entitled “Defining Great Leadership” by Warren Bennis and Joel Kurtzman, both experienced and celebrated writers and speakers on this subject. It was a full house.

Bennis, in describing the start of his life-study of leadership related his experience during World War II as a fresh Lieutenant in a combat hardened infantry unit in France. His discussion rang a bell with me as that was so similar to my first leadership experience. In Korea in 1955 I was transferred from a non-combat assignment to a tank regiment on the front lines. Bennis and Kurtzman stressed one is only a leader when there are loyal followers and they both agreed the Army was the best training ground for this. When I was placed as a tank platoon leader, it was the “loyal followers” who trained me to be a leader. The sergeants, all veterans of chasing Rommel across Africa and Italy, showed me how to be part of the team, and lead.

Today, those companies with outstanding and responsible leadership, with the professional and social skills needed to inspire and harness creativity in the high-tech world, will be our heroes of this century.

Bennis’ book Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership and Kurtzman’s Common Purpose: How Great Leaders Get Organizations to Achieve the Extraordinary are available from Amazon and book stores.

Buy here  “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”

The Jews of El Paso

 Popular Dry Goods

Someone ought to write a book about the Jews of El Paso. When I grew up in that Texas border town, I was very aware of the Jews. My mother bought our shoes at Given’s Shoe Store. Some of the leading Jews were 32^nd  Degree Masons, as was my dad. The top department store was Popular Dry Goods founded in 1902 by the pioneer Adolph Schwartz. From a small village in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he landed in New York in 1883 with fifteen cents in his pocket and somehow made it to El Paso and opened the Popular.  As a high school student I worked on Saturdays in the Popular, manning the Boy Scout Department, and working for Willy Wildstein and Ed Smallberg.  But there were Jews before Schwartz.

Adolph Krakauer migrated from Bavaria to New York in 1865 and 1869 moved to San Antonio, Texas, where he went to work for Louis Zork, a leading merchant. He moved to El Paso in 1875, at a time when the town’s population was listed as seventy-five Mexicans and twenty-five Anglos. There he clerked in the firm of Sam Schutz and Son and became manager when the business was sold; later he became a partner. In 1885 he sold his interest in the firm and organized the firm of Krakauer, Zork, and Moye with his brother-in-law, Gustave Zork. That firm was the main hardware store in El Paso my entire life there. It also was a main source for arms to both sides in the Mexican Revolution as you may read about in my family story of that time, “Dos Gringos.” My grandfather, Friedrich Müller (not Jewish)was the salesman and I used to have pictures of him in Mexico with the Villistas with their sombreros and guns. Krakauer was voted Mayor of El Paso, but could not take office as he had neglected to become an American citizen.

There were many others. The Jews made their mark and were important contributors to the success of that town on the Rio Grande. When I visit El Paso today, I stand across from where the Popular was, in the square with the fountain where the alligators used to be, and I miss the Jews, who made that border town so livable. In fact there have been several accounts of the El Paso Jews: See The History of Jewish El Paso

Confessions of a Russophile

From the review for “Walking on Ice. An American Businessman in Russia” from Russia Profile magazine, by its editor, Andrei Zolotov, Jr.  

Of the legion of Western entrepreneurs who came to Russia in the early 1990s in search of opportunities, many came here guided not just by greed, but by a quest for adventure. But there were few who had become infatuated with Russian culture built their businesses as a cultural matchmaking of sorts. They had the inquisitive minds and open hearts of cultural interpreters, which helped push their projects in the land, where, as one such person, Frederick R. Andresen put it, “everything is difficult—and everything is possible.”

Andresen put his insightful observations into a tenderly written, concise book, which is neither an academic study, nor a memoir; neither a business manual, nor a cultural history. Yet it somehow manages to serve all these purposes and can be recommended as an easy and highly educational read for aspiring Russia scholars and people preparing for a tour of duty in Russia.

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