A Culture of Shrewdness

Shrewd adjective, -er, -est.
1. Astute or sharp in practical matters.


The word has been topical for me lately, mainly because of a few different conversations and because of an article in the November issue of the Report on Business. The article, written by Grant Robertson about the collapse of Can West Global Communication Corp., is titled: 'The Day Leonard Asper Lost the Street.'

Robertson makes a comment that really jumped out at me: 'That Can West had waited too long and missed out on the frothy trust market had suggested a basic lack of shrewdness.' Robertson backs up the statement further by mentioning various strategic mistakes the company made including taking on too much debt, not willing to pay it down when they had the opportunities and the poorly timed acquisition of Alliance Atlantis. 

He also referenced all the high ego and glitz terms and words such as: 'Crowning achievement.' 'Private lunch at The King Edward Hotels Kensington Room.' 'Acquire.' 'Merge.' 'The street.' 'Stock price.' 'Institutional investors.' 'Smart money' 'Patriarchs single minded drive to create a national media powerhouse.' And so on.

I really enjoyed the article and learned a lot from what Grant wrote. Those kinds of topics and events have always fascinated me and I suppose ROB needs to illustrate the kinds of conversations that Can West executives were probably having at the Goldman Sachs client Christmas party (back in the good old days of 2006.) You know, the ones we can all get involved in that make business people feel important and educated.

Perhaps Roberston was intentionally excluding the kinds of phrases that would suggest a culture of shrewdness existed. A conversation where a Can West executive would be accused of boring a party goer by making statements such as:

'We have excellent managers whom are always looking for ways to increase our revenues while pushing costs down.' 'They are astute at setting up the systems and putting skilled and motivated people in place.' 'We are humble enough to look for outside vendors to help us where appropriate.'  'Our relationship with the union is not perfect, but is improving because of new ways of communicating and agreeing on how we both define success.' 'The company's new strategic plan is reasonable while challenging and exciting.' 'Productivity and innovation is at an all time high and we know how to measure it.'

The party guest starts to slip away while whispering one of those elongated 'riiighhhht,' comments. 'Hey wait! Where you going!?' the executive pleads. 'There's more! Seriously this is good stuff!'

Too late, the 'please impress me' guest has bolted back to the shrimp and ice sculpture. Conversations about shrewd business practices are just toooo boring.

 Have a good week,

Kevin
PS. Click here to read Grants article.