Threshold Resistance

Author:A. Alfred Taubman [A. Alfred Taubman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061754043
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2007-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

Selling Art and Root Beer

It’s always interesting to spend time with college students. They ask great questions and hang on every word of your answers. In 1985 I got a call from a professor at the Harvard Business School asking if I would come to campus to discuss my “eclectic” business experience. He said the students and faculty would be particularly interested in any common threads running through the seemingly unrelated fields of retailing, real estate, art, restaurants, and professional sports (I had recently become the majority owner of the Michigan Panthers football team of the new United States Football League).

I was flattered by the invitation—this was Harvard, after all—and went right to work crafting my half-hour “lecture.” It was a great opportunity for me to examine my businesses and achievements from a fresh point of view. Since my schoolday afternoons at Sims department store, I had spent little time reflecting on my career, let alone the underlying principles guiding the decisions, risks, and investments I had made as an adult. Other than my involvement, what did Taubman shopping centers, A&W Restaurants, Sotheby’s, Woodward & Lothrop, and the Panthers have in common? Good question.

To get the students’ attention and set up my central themes, I led with a provocative introduction:

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