| Q. |
Do you think that lifelong employment can translate well across to other companies and industries? |
| A. |
My feeling is that when a company puts customers and
employees first, shareholders will gain value in the
long run. That's a very different view than the
short-term quarterly estimate type management style
preferred by Wall Street. Lincoln Electric is a public
company and does perform quarterly investor calls,
but investors know that they're not trying solely
to maximize short term quarterly returns.
As far as
lifelong employment at other companies, if I were running
a company today, I would do the best I could to uphold
lifelong employment. But I'd
also recognize that in today's marketplace many
people think they need to move around from company
to company in order to get ahead. Consequently, it
would be exceedingly difficult to instill this philosophy
to those who have grown up in the move around culture.
|
| Q. |
How many HBS business cases have now been written about Lincoln Electric? |
| A. |
About four or five. Most of the cases are based upon
the relationship between management and employees.
The biggest selling case in the history of HBS is the
Lincoln Electric 1972 case. I recently became the President
of the Harvard Club of Naples, and I told the first
60 people that signed up that we'd send them
the 1972 case. In addition, the current CEO came down
and spoke with club members and brought them up to
date. Today, the basic principles of lifelong employment
remain intact and shareholders have been handsomely
rewarded: Lincoln's stock is up 40% this year. |
| Q. |
What do you think Northeast Ohioans can do to ensure that the economy improves? |
| A. |
My feeling is that if Northeast Ohio is to really
grow we have to become more and more of an international
city by encouraging manufacturing and/or engineering
firms from India, China, Poland etc. to have a presence
here. On that note, I'm involved with the Cleveland
Council on World Affairs, which just elected a new
chairman, Alex Machaskee, from the Plain Dealer We're
moving the Council forward in collaboration with the
Cleveland International Program (CIP), the World Trade
Center, Cleveland, and Cleveland State. We need to
put on programs to encourage Northeast Ohioans to go
international. That's the real future of our
city. I don't think heavy manufacturing will
ever really come back. |
| Q. |
What’s the best HBS-NEO event you have attended? |
| A. |
Well, this is very self serving, but I have to say
it was the HBS 2001 Global Conference, of which I was
the Chairman. We were fortunate to have a truly great
team. We had to push hard to sell it out because, unfortunately,
Cleveland is not thought of as a "destination" city.
However, a little over 900 people attended and there
was a waiting list. It was the most successful global
conference HBS has ever had. It was not only financially
successful on its own, but we were also able to assist
with the HBS travel and publishing expenses as well. |
| Q. |
What does the HBS-NEO Club do well, and what could it do better? |
| A. |
The HBS-NEO club is truly outstanding. The programs
are great. The board involvement is very good. Our
board members are always looking for new ideas. The
overall camaraderie of the area alumni is outstanding.
I wouldn't do much to change it. |
Programs 