Appendix

MY STUDY GROUP

Let me tell you a little bit about members of my study group at the Harvard Business School OPM program.

Dr. John Altman, a Protestant minister who ran a successful plastics company, was elected president of the class. John grew up on the South Side of Chicago and worked summers at the country club, where he was paid solely in tips. He learned to hustle and give his customers fast, efficient, and courteous service. In return, he was one of the club’s most respected and rewarded employees. He later went to Miami of Ohio and played football.

Geoff Murphy was from Australia and started working in construction while in high school. He possessed a great work ethic and within a few years became owner of the company. Geoff had an uncanny ability to find solutions to cases that came from his drive to succeed. Geoff was not limited in his thinking by what they taught in college—because he never went there. By the end of the three-year class, Geoff’s construction company was the largest in Australia/New Zealand.

Andreas Schweitzer was from Switzerland, and all we knew about him was that he was from a family business in the hotel industry. In the first year of OPM, as a joke, we would leave our dirty laundry next to his door. He never objected. He was quiet but spoke with a lot of wisdom.

When we came back the second year, we each found a brochure next to our door that announced that the hotel he ran, the Dolder Grand Hotel in Zurich, Switzerland, had been voted the number one hotel in the world based on value and service. Boy, were we embarrassed!

Jay McCabe, an attorney from Boston, had been the head of logistics for Gillette. He then decided to start his own logistics company and came to the OPM program. His company’s strengths included: knowledge of the industry, better personal service (twenty-four/seven), and continuous innovation to solve present and future problems. We were surprised by how many large companies utilized him for his motivational expertise, in addition to hiring him for their logistics work.

Phillip Stein, the youngest member of our group, was from California and had an MBA from Berkeley. He was the only member of the group who was computer-savvy, and he had a lot of business experience with family businesses in the retail trade. Though he’s had over a dozen eye operations, he keeps working.

For one year, Carlos Mattos was part of our group. He was from Colombia, in South America; smart as a whip; and enjoyed his social life very much. We wondered if he would ever be successful. When I was elected to the Babson Board of Trustees in 2013, Carlos was one of the board members. By that time, he was owner and CEO of over a hundred car dealerships in Colombia.