Two Scorecards Archives - understand-culture

Values and Numbers

In his letter in General Electric’s 2000 annual report, Jack Welch sorted managers into four types by two questions. Do they share the company’s values? Do they make the numbers? A manager who does both: “sky’s the limit!” A manager who shares the values but misses the numbers gets “typically, another chance, or two.”

Welch called the fourth type “the toughest call of all: the manager who doesn’t share the values, but delivers the numbers.” GE removed them, because they “have the power, by themselves, to destroy the open, informal, trust-based culture.”

Nice Guys Finish Last

Leo Durocher, manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, is remembered for saying “Nice guys finish last.” In July 1946 he spoke about the New York Giants. What he said, according to the New York Journal-American, was: “The nice guys are all over there, in seventh place.”

When Baseball Digest reprinted the story that fall, “seventh” became “last.” Durocher adopted the shorter version. He used it as the title of a magazine article in 1948 and of his autobiography in 1975.

The Swingin’ A’s

The Oakland Athletics won three consecutive World Series, in 1972, 1973 and 1974. They also fought each other. Reggie Jackson and Billy North had a locker room fight.

Just before Game 1 of the 1974 World Series, Blue Moon Odom and Rollie Fingers fought. Fingers needed stitches and Odom sprained an ankle. The A’s won the Series.

Shaq and Kobe

Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant played together for the Los Angeles Lakers from 1996 to 2004. They feuded for years over their roles on the team.

Together they won three consecutive NBA championships, in 2000, 2001 and 2002, and reached the Finals again in 2004. That summer the Lakers traded O’Neal to the Miami Heat. Years later O’Neal spoke of an “athletic dislike,” and Bryant of “mutual respect.”

Team of Rivals

As president, Abraham Lincoln put his three rivals for the 1860 Republican nomination in his cabinet: William Seward, Salmon P. Chase and Edward Bates. Later he added Edwin Stanton, who years earlier had called him a “damned long-armed ape.” Bates wrote in his diary that Lincoln “lacks will and purpose.”

Lincoln gave his reason: “We needed the strongest men of the party in the cabinet.” He said he “had no right to deprive the country of their services.” Seward came to a different verdict over time: “the President is the best of us.”

Admiral King

After Pearl Harbor, Admiral Ernest King took command of the U.S. Fleet on December 30, 1941, and became Chief of Naval Operations in March 1942. The Navy’s historians describe his “volcanic temperament.” Roosevelt said that King shaved every morning with a blowtorch. His daughter said he was the most even-tempered man in the Navy: “He is always in a rage.”

King was widely reputed to have said, “When they get in trouble, they send for the sons of bitches.” Asked about it, he said he had not said it, but would have if he had thought of it.