Marvin Bower

Actually, I didn't know much about Marvin Bower, a legendary figure of McKinsey. Having read the book "McKinsey's Marvin Bower", I now think that all those who work for professional firms can learn a lot from him.

Marvin joined McKinsey in 1933, and in 1947 he and three partners bought exclusive and full rights to the name McKinsey & Co. from McKinsey & Kearney. (After selling the rights, McKinsey & Kearney became A. T. Kearney) The purpose of this buyout was to focus on management consulting business, which he believes is incompatible with accounting service business which was conducted by McKinsey & Kearney. Marvin thought that there is a potential conflict of interests if one firm conducts both of those businesses. While other management consulting firms went public, McKinsey didn't, because if McKinsey becomes a listed company, the firm should work for the shareholders interests, not those of clients.

Until stepping down as managing director of the firm in 1967 and formally retiring in 1992, he brought about significant influence on the business society. Client members of Marvin's teams were 20 times more likely to rise to a senior management level (president or CEO) than were their peers. During Marvin's 17 years as manning director of McKinsey, more than 50 of the consultants evolved into CEOs of leading global companies. Even in Japan, there are many McK alumni who assume the role of senior executive of big companies.

Those accomplishments are done by Marvin's professionalism and leadership.

His professionalism was intensive. The following remark well shows his professionalism:

"We are what we speak - it defines us - it is our image. We don't have customers, we have clients. We don't serve within an industry, we are a profession We are not a company, we are not a business. We are a firm. We don't have employees, we have firm members and colleagues who have individual dignity. We don't have business plans, we have aspirations. We don't have rules, we have values. We are management consultants only. We are not managers, promoters, or constructors." (P30)

Through his action, he emphasized and taught his peers what professionalism is.

He didn't like people saying "Well, I did this job for General Motors.", because he thought it diminished the quality of the professional relationship.

He sticked to dress code, saying

"If your job is to help a client have the courage to follow the trail indicated by facts, you need to do everything you can to minimize the distractions and deviations the client is likely to take. If you have revolutionary ideas, they are much more likely to be listened to if you do not have revolutionary dress - the CEOs must have confidence in us. … Basically, the dress code all has to do with what you want to do." (P71)

Marvin was also concerned with the appearance of written communications. McKinsey had formal reports, informal reports, memorandum reports, letters of proposal, memoranda of proposal, and so on, all of which had a full and logically sufficient set of rules. Everyone in the firm used the exactly same typeface.

Marvin Bower was not only the professional management consultant, but also the leader of the firm. Though his leadership, he made the world's best consultancy and let his clients make courageous decisions.

According to Marvin, there are six value-based leadership qualities:

1. Put the client's interest first and separate yourself from the job: Always take your job seriously, not yourself. Mavin never held back the truth from a client, as that would not have been client's best interest.

2. Be consistent yet open minded:eery one met the same Marvin Bower during his long life. Strict in principle and open-minded.

3. Center problem-solving on the facts and on the front line: Marvin always insisted on gathering essential facts.

4. View problems and Decisions in the context of the whole and in terms of the immediate actions to be taken: Marvin believed that isolated facts do not lead to solutions. Having imagination and context to see where the facts lead creates solutions and paths.

5. Inspire and require people to be the best: Marvin challenged his peers and require they to perform as best professionals. He didn't allow the associates to have lunch with friends in weekdays.

6. Communicate the values of the company over and over again to ensure that the firm will understand them, embrace them, and translate them into actions

The author, who worked together with Marvin, said his leadership is distilled six attributes:

1. Integrity/Trustworthiness

2. Fact-based visioning and a pragmatic "Monday Morning" path to turn vision into reality

3. Adherence to principles/values

4. Humility and unassuming respect for others

5. Strong Communications / personal persuasiveness

6. Personal involvement / demonstrated commitment

The final test of a leader is whether he can leave behind in other man the conviction and the will to carry on. Even in this sense, Marvin was the great leader. Founder tends to be stick to the position he established, but he stepped down as managing director of the firm, saying "If you are going to have a dynamic economy, don't let the elderly run the enterprises of the economy.". Even after he left, there were plenty of successors, and even now McKinsey is the factory of world's managers.

I truly appreciate his great life, inspiring me a lot and giving me the chance to think about my job as a professional.

Human Capital

It was Gary Becker who firstly formalized the concept of Human Capital in his book, "Human Capital - A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education". He argued that human resources are a kind of capital, and on-the-job training, education, and the other similar activities are investments in human capital. Nowadays, many people understand the concept, but when the book is firstly published, the argument was epoch-making.

In the book, he analyzed human capital mainly by using demand-supply framework, a classical but still useful framework. Price of human capital, or one's income, is determined at the point where demand and supply curves intersect.

A supply curve of human capital is mainly determined by one's economic condition - for example, if one was raised in poor family, university education could be too costly to have. In this framework, equality of opportunities means is achieved by making supply curve identical. Practical policy would be to establish public schools, let the tuition be free, and so on.

In the framework, a demand curve is mainly determined by one's talent. Some people believe that one's income ought to be high or low based on his or her talent, the notion that Dr. Becker called "the elite approach". It may be difficult to separate demand and supply sides, because it seems that one's gift may be affected by her/his family condition (malnutrition, carelessness toward infants due to busyness, etc would severely affect one's future ability).

Professor Becker also estimated the impact of college education, by calculating annual return of it. According to him, average annual return on college education is ranged from 11% to 13%. The rangee varies based on one's social status: in United States, return on human capital investment was higher for whites and men but lower for non-whites and women, partly because, especially in those days, whites and men could promote more and enjoy more income, whereas non-whites and women could not.

This variation in return on higher education suggests that those who are excluded from opportunities would have less incentive to have higher education, because the return on investment is relatively low for those people. The variation may also explain why test scores or university entrance rates of some groups are lower than the others. For some people, getting higher score in schools may be less meaningful, because the benefit is smaller than the cost when one's inherited wealth is small: one in poor family may find it more attractive to spend his or her time for doing part-time job rather than studying.

Fuji Rock 2011

It was Naeba in Nigata prefecture, not Yamanashi or Nagano where mt. Fuji is located. That was the first thing I noticed when I attended Fuji Rock Festival first time in life, in the final summer while I'm 20s.

It was terrible environment and infrastructure, the second thing I noticed; from Echigo-yuzawa station, I waited for circa 1.5 hours to take a bus to get to Naeba. After the arrival, I waited in a long line to get my ticket exchanged to a wrist band, proof of buying a ticket. Massive rain was all over the mountains, culminating in the disastrous flood.

With that said, it was one of the most memorable events I had in 20s. The severe wether condition seems to strengthen the power of music. Anyone has experienced how the food is delicious when one is hungry. You can sense how beautiful and powerful the music is, when you're in a severe condition. Every stage was great, but if I were to pick up one, I would say that the live of Coldplay was the best (picture). It was not just the music but the mixture of all sorts of arts.

The live performance was great and everyone including me got excited, but during the live performance, I sensed as if I am a stranger in the crowd. As a person who has the experience in playing in front of people, I may have viewed them not only as the greatest artists in the world, but also as competitors or teachers. I was trying to learn from them something, while to some extent I was enjoying it. Would like to do the similar thing in the future.