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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: Helen K. Chang, 650-723-3358, Fax: 650-725-6750
How to Succeed in Business by Really Caring
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: Helen K. Chang, 650-723-3358, Fax: 650-725-6750
May, 2002
STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS—You can make millions of dollars, climb the corporate ladder with ruthless abandon, and roam the halls of corporate commerce with confidence and aplomb, but success in business isn't worth anything unless you're happy. Such a simple concept, but rarely do Stanford MBA students get instruction on the kinder, gentler approach to life. Unless they've heard what Stanford Graduate School of Business lecturer Joel Peterson has to say.
Peterson, who teaches real estate investment and the management of growing enterprises, is a successful private equity investor and likes to talk about the "continuum of well-being." By this he means finding happiness in your life by discovering who you are, finding someone to love, and enjoying the work you do. Many MBA students may think they have the last one nailed after two years of graduate school, but if they want to be effective leaders, there's much more to learn, he says.
What qualifies him to lecture on how to succeed in business by really caring? Peterson asked rhetorically of his audience during a spring quarter seminar: "Making money one more time than I lost it, the proven experience of building skyscrapers all over the world, borrowing billions of dollars and making the mistake of personally guaranteeing it, and a certain amount of cunning to convince my wife of 30 years to stick with me." Then he proceeded to share his "battle scars, lucky experiences, limited smarts, and lessons learned the hard way" with his audience of 200—who capped the evening by giving him a standing ovation.
The fact that Peterson, 55, could reap such acclaim was not a surprise. The well-spoken, somewhat self-deprecating businessman achieved success at an early age, starting with being named valedictorian at his undergraduate alma mater, Brigham Young University. Just two years after getting his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1973, he was named treasurer of Trammell Crow Co., one of the world's largest commercial real estate developers. A year later he became CFO and later managing partner. After leaving Crow in 1991, he founded Peterson Capital of Salt Lake City, where he continues to invest in growing enterprises. One was the airline Jet Blue that went public in April.
SELF-DISCOVERY
"If you want to accomplish something, you must be something," says Peterson, who adds that Socrates had it right: "Know thyself." The first way to self-discovery is to read not only the Wall Street Journal and Business Week but also broadly—biographies, books by people from different cultures and perspectives, and inspirational texts or poetry. Memorize passages that mean something to you, he says, then pay attention to what you've chosen to commit to memory.
Write out a business plan for your life—you wouldn't start a business without a plan, and this is your life we're talking about, he says.
Go to a funeral every year and listen to what's said about the deceased. Think about your legacy and write your own obituary for a nerve-wracking lesson on how you want to live your life, he adds.
LOVE
Love is a commitment, says Peterson, but it also is a function of sacrifice. "Make a commitment to someone who doesn't deserve it," he advocates. "There's a perverse economy of spirit—those who give get back more."
He also cautions not to allow grudges, bitterness, and retribution to reside in your life—sometimes a tall order in the business environment.
WORK
Peterson says there are four things leaders have to do well—pathfinding, communicating, team building, and imparting trust. All are intertwined, and one mistake young leaders often make is confusing the path with the goal, he says. "If you stay focused on the objective, the team will help you build the path." In building that team, Peterson says, you must "hire for brains and heart, not experience. At Crow I can't think of anyone we hired with real estate experience. We hired for smarts and high character—I couldn't make them any smarter or their character any better, but I could increase their experience."
Trust is built on character, competency, and empowerment, he says. "It's the most critical attribute a leader can have. If people don't trust you, they won't follow you anywhere, other than where they were going anyway." One surefire way to build trust, he has discovered, is to "be everyone's assistant." Peterson says he learned being a "servant" could reap side benefits when he worked in Crow's French office. No one knew how to run the telex machine—not even the secretary—so he volunteered, reading the instruction manual to learn how to transmit and receive. It might have seemed "beneath" a Harvard MBA to do such work, but "I got to see every incoming and outgoing memo in the office," he says.
In addition, you can increase people's willingness to trust you by laughing at yourself and poking fun at your mistakes. Be open and look at alternatives, Peterson says, and "choose to be optimistic. See discouragement as temporary."
In communicating, be sure to have something to say, he says. "Make sure the beef is there" by writing short memos, using short words and short sentences. Listen, capture, and reflect. "Look for negative feedback and reward it" for its value in helping to learn and improve. Take a course in presentations or public speaking. Develop a negotiating style and don't be afraid to claim a fair "price" for letting the opponent get what he wants, or in other words, "Make a market in their objective."
While success is about happiness and vice versa, Peterson encourages students to tackle adversity head on. "Don't fear conflict in times of adversity. Take on tasks with courage," he says.
But don't confuse adversity with life. "A bunch of deals blowing up or going sour—that may feel like adversity, but in the broad context of life, it's not."
Peterson's remarks were made as part of the Last Lecture Series, a student-sponsored spring event designed to permit students to hear lectures by a group of top professors. Students were able to earn course credit for attending the entire series of lectures.
by Joyce Routson