Cocaine Soda’s CEO Explains How To Fail
Success is entirely optional so, if you feel compelled to fail, you might want to read Donald Keough’s The Ten Commandments for Business Failure… but don’t take my word for it:
Don’s commandments for failure will teach you more about business success than a whole shelf full of books.
A must read for every leader.
… with such glowing recommendations, I couldn’t pass it up – you, however, are welcome to do so because (as with any book review worth its salt) I’m here to spoil the ending.
Don’t own a business? Well, like it or not, you are already in business for yourself.
Insolvent currencies notwithstanding, you will be trading your assets (time, goods, blood plasma, et cetera) with other businesses until you die and, if you’re not good at making trades, you may find yourself dead sooner… that’s [arguably] a bad thing, so let’s see how a professional would do it!
The Commandments
[01] Quit taking risks
Roundly acceptable advice – Keough makes the point that if you’re not making mistakes, you’ve stopped making progress.
[02] Be Inflexible
Keough pays homage to Machiavelli (surely every CEO is familiar with The Prince, if not the artist-formerly-known-as) and we find this quote:
For this is the tragedy of man – circumstances change, but he doesn’t.
- Machiavelli
It’s a damnable shame for humanity that history is littered with the same failed experiments time and again, but, oddly enough, I was unable to find the source of Keough’s citation – perhaps CEO’s are issued a different translation of Machiavelli’s works?
[03] Isolate Yourself
I love the description of one CEO’s lavish “Taj Mahal” office suite – beyond that, this should be common sense…
[04] Assume Infallibility
… but there are many things which business leaders apparently lack in the common sense department. Here’s an example of some profound business sense:
If something seems to be heading in the wrong direction, cover up, or, better yet, wait until you have a full-blown crisis, then blame it on some external force – or blame it on someone else. Customers are frequently troublesome. You can always blame whatever goes wrong on them!
- The Ten Commandments for Business Failure
[05] Play the Game Close to the Foul Line
Another sterling quote – this time from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s The Phenomenon of Man, with a caveat to the snakeoil salesmen of the world:
The Jesuit priest and distinguished paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin noted that “no evolutionary future awaits man except in association with all other men.” I agree. Therefore, it not only behooves us to treat our fellow human beings with compassion and respect, it is essential for our collective survival. Unethical men and women can flourish for periods, sometimes very long periods, but ultimately their lack of morality – and their lack of humility – destroys them. You cannot build a strong and lasting business on a rotten foundation.
- The Ten Commandments for Business Failure
[Emphasis mine]
I absolutely love the selective myopia of a CEO who claims – nay, commands – ethical practices while running a company founded on the principle of selling Sigmund Freud’s beloved cocaine in patent medicine format to anyone willing to cough up a few cents.
Chalk one up to the flexibility of Donald Keough’s ethics!
To the company’s credit, psychoactive substances (you know, aside from the simple sugars and caffeine) were removed as the drug’s addictive properties came into public consciousness – but how does one legitimize selling hokum? It’s enjoyable, of course! … if you can get past the problem of whether or not its product is fit for human consumption, however, Coca-Cola remains embroiled in some questionable practices to this day.
One has to wonder whether Keough ever stopped to consider the ethical implications of selling marked-up sugar water to a nation with an obesity epidemic… If they can’t help themselves, let them drink aspartame!
[06] Don’t Take Time to Think
Every successful businessman I’ve known has been an “ask questions later” character so, despite the fact that technology has made it easier than ever to make embarrassing mistakes with far-reaching consequences, this commandment rings false.
Damage control, baby! That’s all ‘ya need!
… if you were about to think twice before posting photos from last night’s wild party on your Facebook account, however, this commandment might be for you …
[07] Put All Your Faith in Experts
Seeing through hype and fending off blood-sucking Web 2.0 social media proactive networking strategy consultants is a no-brainer if you want to stay in business…
… but if you want to fail, go ahead and trust them for the same reasons you trust your doctor to prescribe you the right medication, trust your elected officials to act in your best interests, and trust your clergy alone with your kids.
[08] Love your Bureaucracy
Meetings are the religious services of a great bureaucracy and the bureaucrats are fervently religious.
- The Ten Commandments for Business Failure
[09] Send Mixed Messages
Everything from Economics 101 as imagined by Mr. Keough to a series of Coca Cola Company anecdotes amounts to this chapter: a mixed message unto itself.
I think the gist of it is a warning about brand consistency or something – but you’ll have to slog through it yourself to find out what happened when Coca Cola bought Columbia Pictures.
[10] Be Afraid of the Future
The pessimists tell us the world was born in chaos and has been going downhill ever since. But we have to live with some hope. We have to live with some faith in our fellow men. We have to act as if there will be a tomorrow, there is some point in starting an enterprise, in starting a family, in admiring the sunset, in going on.
- The Ten Commandments for Business Failure
If you’ve read anything I’ve written thus far, you will probably assume that I am one of the doom-and-gloom types Keough is debunking – and, in that, you would be right… up to a point.
One of my favorite quotations on the topic of optimism for humanity – especially that as espoused by a few of the world’s more popular religions – comes from Bertrand Russell’s Unpopular Essays:
Modern theological opponents of birth control are less honest. They pretend to think that God will provide, however many mouths there may be to feed. They ignore the fact that He has never done so hitherto, but has left mankind exposed to periodical famines in which millions died of hunger.
The future simply isn’t for the hundreds of people who have died from starvation and diseases bolstered by malnutrition in the time it has taken you to read this post. Some 36,000,000 people die every year because, even though there is enough food for everyone (which won’t be the case if we run out of oil), it’s simply too difficult to overcome the bureaucracies and distribution problems which would accompany delivering the food to those godforsaken people living in poverty.
If Donald Keough meant his admonishment strictly for fellow investment bankers, perhaps I can see where he’s coming from… but the optimism he exhorts is a trite diversion from realism so far as I’m concerned.
A friend of mine once interviewed me for his zine Basic Paper Airplane #2 and, though it was 3:35AM and I was drunk at the time, I think my optimism – if you can call it that – is best summarized there:
Interview with Joshua Amberson
Amberson: OK, OK… just, how do you think it’s all gonna go down?
I mean, we can’t say off-hand.
Amberson: Well, just a guess!
I’m going to say that energy is going to follow its most efficient form and, as we stand right now, we’re very inefficient as organisms and as societies and as nations.
So, however it happens, we’re going to have to face entropy again and we’re going to have to face it as a more efficient form of energy or we’re going to be destroyed by it.
Bygones? Let ‘em be.
Thank you for your work putting together The Ten Commandments of Business Failure, Mr. Keough – could’ve lived without the regular lip-service to the Coca Cola Company, but you’ve at least made up for it by providing suggestions one would do well not to do business – or live – by.
Never quit taking risks. Always learn from failure. Evolve.
Bonus dust jacket endorsements:
Don Keough has taken more than six decades of business experience and distilled it into his Ten Commandments for Business Failure. Filled with telling anecdotes from his years at Coca-Cola, this book is a sustained argument against managerial conceit and complacency. On almost every page he reminds us that when the going gets too good, the wise business leader starts worrying.
- Rupert Murdoch
Don Keough, with his sixty years of business experience, is well equipped to comment about business leadership. He is an outstanding man, and I am proud to call him a friend.
- George H. W. Bush
