The Business Shrink Blog

Under the Influence

2005-11-28T09:40:00.000-08:00

Why do ordinarily intelligent people make dumb investment decisions? I have some theories, all involving an ex-girlfriend. But Forbes.com offers some other explanations in an article published online this morning. The story cites the compelling research of Robert Cialdini, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University and author of Influence: Science and Practice (Allyn & Bacon, 2000). "We're all susceptible to suggestions by influential people; we gravitate to something if it seems to be unavailable to everyone else, and we trust strangers who appear to be like us," the article states.

Tune in to the Business Shrink this week for Peter Morris' investment advice and insight -- and maybe some of his own dumb investment decision stories...

Driving Mr Morris

2005-11-26T16:35:00.000-08:00

The Business Shrink touched a nerve with his listeners last week after talking to Time magazine writer Jeff Kluger about his cover story on the science of ambition. Kluger's article looks at the latest research on what drives some people to achieve, and others to be complacent. Peter Morris was flooded with calls from listeners asking for advice on how best to start a business or follow their dream.

One Business Shrink caller, Wahid from Long Island, asked Peter Morris about the source of his ambition and motivation: “My ambition came from my mother and father who scared me when I was a young kid growing up,” Peter said. “They scared me by basically saying 'hey man if you don’t get off your rear end and do something and make something out of your self you won’t be very happy, rather than sit around and wait for your inheritance to come in'.” The Business Shrink added: “perseverance is what takes you from ambition to reality.”

Rebate and Switch

2005-11-26T16:14:00.000-08:00

It's getting so you can't buy something without having to fill out a bunch of paperwork to get back the money you overpaid for it. This holiday shopping season, rebates are as ubiquitious -- and annoying -- as premature Christmas music. Business Week's Brian Grow, writing in the Nov. 23 issue, calls rebates a "tax on the disorganized." Retailers and manufacturers love them, Grow writes, because they know that 40 percent of all rebates never get redeemed. This week, Brian Grow will join Peter Morris to talk about his revealing article "The Great Rebate Runaround. "

Business Shrink with a Twist

2005-11-17T14:33:00.000-08:00

The Business Shrink now has an exciting new home on Sirius satellite radio. Lime - "Healthy Living with a Twist" - on channel 114. LIME's programs focus on everything to organic food to corporate responsibility to alternative healthcare. Check it out at www.limemedia.com.

a growing debate

2005-11-17T14:18:00.000-08:00

Starting in the late 1990's, thousands of people in the US and abroad took to the streets to question the "Washington consensus" -- the idea that the tide of so called "free" trade and economic globalization would "lift all boats". Critics questioned whether those policies were set up to benefit poor people, or just multinational corporations. They also challenged the idea that "growth" as measured by indicators such as GDP, is actually always a good thing. Those economic indicators, skeptics say, don't take into account social and environmental effects of economic development. But in his new book, The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, Benjamin Friedman -- a leading critic of Ronald Reagan's economic policies-defends growth as a key factor in promoting political freedom and social and economic growth around the world. Tomorrow he joins the Business Shrink to talk about the book.

Gut Feelings

2005-11-07T11:19:00.000-08:00

Food-fixated people are sometimes accused of thinking with their stomachs. When Michael Gershon talks about thinking with the stomach, he means it literally. Gershon, who appeared on the Business Shrink last week, is one of the world’s leading expert on what he calls “the brain in the gut.” It is no surprise, he says, that gastrointestinal ailments have roots in anxiety and depression.

“Everybody’s known for many years that the brain can affect the gut. Anybody’s who’s examined closely foxholes, shortly after an artillery barrage, will tell you that there are nasty affects the brain can have on the gut,” Gershon told the Business Shrink.

But Gershon has uncovered the complexity of the enteric nervous system, which manages every aspect of digestion with a “sophisticated, nearly self-contained network of neural circuitry, neurotransmitters and protein,” much like the brain.

“When it comes to a brain in the gut I must be a genius,” said the Business Shrink, apparently in reference to his girth.

London Calling

2005-11-02T10:56:00.000-08:00

Why do good companies go bad? According to Donald Sull, who joined the Business Shrink live from UK where he teaches at London Business School, the most common explanations-- incompetent or corrupt executive leadership -- don’t usually hold water. Sull blames something he calls “active inertia” - an organization's tendency to persist in established patterns of behavior.

“What really explains why many good companies go bad is they get trapped by the very commitments that allowed them to succeed in the first place,” Sull told Peter Morris. “Once you’re aware of this dynamic of active inertia, the possibility that you make strong commitments and they allow you to succeed but when the environment shifts those commitments, those frames and processes and resources and relationships and values, those very hardened commitments, can be the source of your inability to respond effectively.”

Peter Morris agreed. “One of the most important things is to be able to continually reinvent yourself,” he said.

Your Tribal Mind

2005-10-27T13:07:00.000-07:00

A while back on the Business Shrink we did a segment on the growing trend of Christian entrepreunership with Time magazine reporter Lisa Takeuchi Cullen. Targeting a specific group can make marketing easier, Cullen said, but such an approach has potential pitfalls; an openly Christian business runs the risk of alienating non-Christians.

On today’s show Peter looked at the bigger picture: why do humans sort themselves into groups in the first place? His guest was David Berreby, author of the fascinating new book Us and Them: Understanding Your Tribal Mind.

Here are some highlights from their discussion:

On the conditions that breed radicalism:

Peter Morris If you look at the situations where these do or die followers are manipulated by evil-minded or power-hungry leaders, it wasn’t just that it took a lot of effort. It was that the underlying conditions were more prevalent. What does that mean?…Poverty, emotional depravity, alienation, physical separation, geographic limitations. And we’re living in a word where a lot of those things don’t exist anymore. I mean, a lot of the ability for people to create crusades related to lack of opportunity, lack of resources.

David Berreby: You have a lot of identities when you have a flourishing life…when you have kids because you can afford to have kids and they didn’t die at age two because there’s immunization, and you have a job, and so you have job identity, and you have a community, so you have community identity. And if you have been stripped of a lot of that by circumstances because the health and economic situations around you, you’re impoverished in this sense as well, and it’s easier to persuade you that the only thing that matters is internationalism, or the only thing that matters is being an Aryan.”

On the virtues of moderation:

Peter Morris: Celebrating the different pieces of our affiliation, attributions, characteristics, experiences, and identifying with them is a wonderful thing, and it’s the opposite of being alienated or feeling alienated, it’s belonging. And yet, if you get into too many overarching simplistic, apocalyptic identifications that etch everything else out, that’s where you get into trouble – it’s in the excesses. Or another way of putting it is, in human nature and psychology, people that are too strident about something in their belief are really covering up the fact that they’re quite ambivalent about it.”

Start Me Up

2005-10-25T12:43:00.000-07:00

I am often flummoxed when trying to fathom why businesses succeed or fail. Recently a new café, Ritual Coffee Roasters opened up near my house in San Francisco. It offers a sleek clean decor, good strong coffee from Portland’s Stumptown Coffee, free and reliable wireless access. And it instantly had a line out the door. It seems so simple and effortless. So why have so many cafes and restaurants in my neighborhood failed to catch on?

Although he focused more on venture capital then coffee, The Business Shrink Peter Morris shined some light on that question during his discussion on today’s show, His guest was Joel Kurtzman, author of Startups that Work: The 10 Critical Factors that will Make or Break a New Company. Kurtzman and a research team from PricewaterhouseCoopers spent four years studying 350 companies during the “darkest days of the internet bust” and interviewed hundreds of business people to understand startups from the inside out.

The Business Shrink asked Kurtzman to talk about some of the main obstacles to success.

KURTZMAN: “Well, first of all…too much money often is a real obstacle to companies succeeding. Companies should be hungry at the outset when they’re in the start up phase, and they should conserve their cash, and hoard it if they can. And I have seen, and we’ve observed in our studies, companies that were given lots of capital to begin with often have squandered that capital and failed as a result.

MORRIS: And of course that would seem all too logical, but I’m sure like many things, people don’t always do what’s best and always see clearly

KURTZMAN: Yes, and another really critical negative factor is when the team at the top disagrees as to the strategy going forward. Nothing is worse than when you have the top people who are in a shouting match or war about what the company should do, and who it’s customer’s should be, and how it should reach those customers. That’s lethal. It’s been lethal in the histories of business that I’ve studied; it’s lethal in the 350 companies that we studied. So, strategy really has to be aligned, and everyone in the company has to know it. They have to know what the company is doing, and they have to know where it’s going. That’s very critical, and without it, companies fail.”

The Glick Factor

2005-10-24T08:46:00.000-07:00

The Business Shrink Peter Morris talks a lot about the importance of developing skills like self-awareness and empathy in the workplace. But often, it seems like people lacking in those very qualities rise to the top of the business world. I’m reading a novel now that deals with that very issue – What makes Sammy Run by Budd Schulberg, who also wrote the screenplay for On the Waterfront. The book is the rags to riches story of Sammy Glick, who rises from newspaper copy boy to wealthy Hollywood producer in just a few years. Glick has no apparent talent; he succeeds because he is street smart, exploitative and opportunistic. He gets invited to Hollywood after plagiarizing the screenplay of another writer, and builds on that success with similarly devious tactics. I haven’t finished the book (which is definitely dated but a lot of fun) so I don’t know how Glick’s story turns out. But as Enron, Worldcom, and the latest round of business scandals demonstrate, there are a lot of Glicks out there running the nation’s biggest companies (and the federal government, for that matter). I thought about the Glick story when reading about the Judith Miller mess this morning. Miller’s tenacity and in the words of a former editor, “pushiness “ is clearly what made her a successful reporter. But this pushiness and competitiveness must have alienated a lot of her co-workers, because surprisingly few are rallying to her support right now.

The Business Shrink Goes Nuts

2005-10-18T12:33:00.000-07:00

On today's show Peter Morris got some welcome news from Gregg Miller, the winner of a 2005 Ig Noble prize for his invention of Neuticles, testicular implants for pets. Recently, the Business Shrink had his toy fox terrier Louis neutered, a procedure which Morris says caused great psychological trauma to the pet – as well as his owners. “I can totally appreciate first hand the merits of your invention,” Morris said. Miller was reassuring, telling Business Shrink that Louis can still be restored with solid-silicone Neuticles. He even offered Morris a complimentary set!

Miller, who mortgaged his house and maxed out his credit cards to mass produce his invention, said he wished his parents were alive to witness the award. “When I was a kid my parents always thought I was an idiot, so I wish they could have seen this.”

The Business Shrink praised Miller and his inventiveness. “I think they would be proud of you – you exemplify my theory of unlimited wealth in America, in our society, and the ability to actually identify a demand that isn’t really known or appreciated,” he said.

Miller agreed. “I am what’s called a product pioneer – I have created a market for something that never existed before – it’s kind of fun.”

Peter Morris on process vs. product

2005-10-14T12:59:00.000-07:00

“You have to look at things in terms of process and product and never get the two confused. A lot of times when people try to replicate their success—and are unsuccessful – they are melding the process and the product. If the process were understood people would understand that the only thing that is constant is change.”

Stopping Overshopping

2005-10-08T16:54:00.000-07:00

April Benson, a nationally known psychologist who specializes in the treatment of compulsive buying disorder, joined the Business Shrink October 6 to talk about her work with “shopaholics”. Benson specializes in a condition known as overshopping, which she says afflicts 15 million Americans. Peter Morris maintains that he isn’t much of a shopper, unless you include buying hotels and big-ticket real estate properties. And even though Morris is not a formally trained psychologist (he just plays one on the radio), Benson was impressed with the Business Shrink’s take on compulsive buying and related conditions. “What Peter said that I found thoughtful was his comment that overcommercialization and the plague of materialism that's overtaking our country is leading to an increase in attention deficit disorder (which it may or may not be, but it's nevertheless a thoughful idea),” she told me after the show. Due to my short attention span, I don’t remember Peter’s comment on ADD. But it sounds like it was a very interesting discussion. More on Benson’s work can be found here.

A Classy Conversation

2005-10-05T08:31:00.000-07:00

As the owner of hotels in such exclusive enclaves as Monte Carlo, the Business Shrink certainly understands the importance of status – or the perception of status - on business. On his live show Monday, Peter Morris talked status with Joel Podolny, dean of the Yale School of Management, whose fascinating new book is Status Signals: A Sociological Study of Market Competition. Podolny argues that firms must offer more than just good prices or quality products. They must also know how to manage social and cultural signals. Watch this space for more details of their discussion…

Peter Morris on Tattoo Removal:

2005-10-01T13:47:00.001-07:00

"If I had a significant other's name tattooed on me, and if her name was Judy, the first thing i would do if we broke up is look for another person named Judy," -- Peter Morris to his guest Eric Bernstein, laser surgeon and tattoo removal expert, on Friday's show

Peter Morris...Unplugged

2005-09-27T16:13:00.000-07:00

When not on the air, the Business Shrink is IN the air -- constantly traveling around the world, cutting multi-million dollar deals and barely stopping to eat or rest. But you'll never catch him interrupting dinner to punch something into a blackberry or treo. In fact, the self-described "dinosaur" does not use a blackberry, or even a computer for that matter. Even so, his trusted assistants do use computers and email, which they print out and fax or fedex to whatever far-flung hotel he happens to be calling home.

Morris' workstyle was affirmed today by Business Shrink guest Julie Morgenstern, organizing and time management expert and the author of NEVER CHECK EMAIL IN THE MORNING: And Other Unexpected Strategies for Making Your Work Life Work. "You really are at an advantage," she said to Peter. "more and more people are starting to realize they really do have to pull away...and say no to constant interruptions."

Morgenstern says that her consulting clients used to be able to spend a few days with her. These days they are so swamped that she is lucky to get an hour every few months.

Thanks to distractions like constant email checking, "people are working in kind of a staccato work environment where everything that can get done in 5 or 10 minutes gets attended to but everthing that takes concentration gets put off," she said.

She advises spending the first hour each day on your most critical task. If you can't pull away for the first hour of the day, she says, you won't be able to distance yourself later in the day.

Morris and Morgenstern might be on to something. A recent London University study found that the distractions of constant emails, text and phone messages are a greater threat to IQ and concentration than taking cannabis, according to the UK Guardian.

Money Pitfalls

2005-09-22T13:46:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately Peter Morris and Princeton sociology professor Viviana Zelizer ran out of time before he could get her to assess the dollar value of his children, but the Business Shrink did have a scintillating conversation today with the author of "The Purchase of Intimacy." Zelizer's thesis breaks down something like this: talking about money in the context of intimate relationships is taboo, but it is exactly this fear of acknowledging the mingling of those worlds that causes us a ton of headaches.

Said Zelizer: “As soon as you start looking at your own life, at your own intimate life, you see we are constantly mixing intimate relations with economic activities…we support our children, exchange household work, support an aged parent. So the book is really challenging this assumption that these are totally separate worlds and asks -- why are we so scared about the mixing?"

The Business Shrink also advocates full transparency and disclosure when it comes to financial matters and personal relationships. "When a couple has intimacy problems that aren’t related to finances, money often becomes a flashpoint," he told Zelizer. "But if people have all the issues on the table and the feelings are expressed, these problems can be avoided."

Rush Hour

2005-09-19T18:41:00.000-07:00

Rejected by the sorority house of your choice? Well, don’t give up so easily, sister. Call the Business Shrink, talk radio’s first sorority “rush consultant”, and ace that next recruitment interview. Peter Morris added this service to his resume after Friday’s show, during which he talked to Monster.com founder Jeff Taylor— author of Monster Careers: Interviewing—AND Alexandra Robbins, author of Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities.

Taylor didn’t divulge many details about Eons, the new company he launched earlier this month, but both he and Peter had a lot of useful tips for job interviewees.
They both stressed preparation, especially to deal with the inevitable “tell me about yourself” question. Taylor advised interviewees to prepare by making lists of their strengths and to elaborate on those key areas with vivid success stories. After that exercise, he says “you’re excited, you’re not nervous about the question any longer, and you’re leading the interview in the right direction."

As a lifelong entrepreneur, The Business Shrink hasn’t had to go on many job interviews. But he is a veteran interviewer. “I try to put people at ease and to get people to talk about themselves. I’m always impressed when people ask good questions and drill deeper,” Morris says.

For her book Pledged, Alexandra Robbins went undercover as a pledge to investigate sororities. Robbins told Peter she is not anti-Greek System. “There are a lot of wonderful groups out there”. But she does detail some humiliating hazing rituals, ranging from forcing pledges to eat their own vomit (after eating spam and pounding beers) and requiring them to line up topless in order of breast size. She advised prospective pledges to ditch any house that makes them feel uncomfortable. And on the subject of networking (this is a business show after all) Robbins downplayed the career benefit to pledging, saying that in most cases (with the exception of Greek-obsessed Texas) the payoff is limited.

Sound and Fury

2005-09-14T20:03:00.000-07:00

I’ve only heard the Business Shrink raise his voice once, and that was off-air, when he was on a business call right before the show. It turned out at issue was a high-stakes deal which could have meant “seven figures up or down” for his bottom line. But he was able to manage his anger well enough to pull it together seconds before airtime and host a compelling show. Peter Morris prides himself on his emotional self-management, so it should be fascinating to hear him compare notes with the one of the nation’s leading anger management gurus, George Anderson, tomorrow. According to a recent LA Times profile “Anderson has practically cornered the market on anger management training in Southern California, establishing himself as the dead-calm center of a swirling world of volatile hotheads, sputtering short-fusers, temperamental teeth-clenchers—the whole menagerie of people whose outbursts often bring them, eventually, into a rational and lucrative world Anderson helped create.”

Sympathy for the Devil?

2005-09-12T20:31:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, the Business Shrink chatted with John Dicker, author of the book The United States of Wal-Mart. Dicker catalogues the myriad charges against the company, from sex discrimination to sweatshops. While Peter Morris was sympathetic to Dicker's social, economic, and environmental critique, the host also came to the defense of the embattled company (which did not respond to our invitation). There must be a town somewhere, he said, where Wal-Mart provided a boost to the local economy.

Well there may or may not be such a town, but Wal-Mart is now being widely praised for its speedy response to Hurricane Katrina. The company was ready with cash and supplies before Bush even thought to turn on the weather channel. Even some of the company's longtime critics, like leading retail analyst Burt Flickinger-- our guest on tomorrow's show-- are applauding the the world's largest corporation. "Wal-Mart served the city far better than any private or public institution," Flickenger told the Associated Press.

Frequent Flyer

2005-09-07T15:34:00.000-07:00

The Business Shrink, international mogul of mystery, is on yet another foreign business trip this week. Peter Morris will host the show live from London on Friday and from Paris shortly thereafter. Appropriately, his guest on Friday is Columbia University history professor Victoria de Grazia, who has written a fascinating new book Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance through 20th Century Europe.

When I first visited to London, I was offended by both the condescending attitude toward American culture and the ubiquity of McDonald’s and bad American television. In fact, whenever a snooty Brit (inevitably, just back from holiday in Orlando) would disparage the US, I would simply point out that when TV’s Baywatch was facing cancellation in the US, it was Britain and Germany that provided the financial life preserver. It’s no secret that Europe has a love-hate relationship with America and its culture. Professor de Grazia puts that dynamic in captivating historical perspective.

But first on Friday, Peter checks in again with New Orleans CityBusiness editor Terry O'Connor.
The CityBusiness blog has the latest on social services, economic aid, and travel arrangements -- as well as O'Connor's column. He writes that the Katrina response "revealed callous disregard among the nation’s leaders in a country known worldwide for its compassion...My America would never let babies die in the streets of New Orleans."

Shrink Rap

2005-09-05T09:39:00.000-07:00

Can the Business Shrink save Hip-Hop? Maybe not, but Peter Morris has plenty of advice for up-and-coming rapper Billy Shakes, his first guest on the show tommorrow. Shakes - who is also a vice-president at CitiGroup- will discuss his efforts to bring responsible saving and investment advice to a wider hip-hop audience through his music. I first read about Shakes in a Fortune magazine profile a few weeks ago entitled "The Rap on Wall St," and, after listening to the catchy tracks on his website, decided we had to talk to him. During their conversation, The Business Shrink coined the term "raponomics" (the economics of hip-hop), and offered it to an appreciative Billy Shakes to use (royalty-free!). Or at least I thought Peter coined the term, until I googled it. But let's keep that between us.

Friday guest: New Orleans City Business Editor

2005-09-01T09:23:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, The Business Shrink welcomes Terry O'Connor, editor of New Orleans CityBusiness. O’Connor and several other evacuated staff members have assembled a makeshift newsroom in Baltimore in the office of CityBusiness’ sister publication, The Daily Record. They are busy disseminating frequent updates on the paper's website and through daily e-mail alerts. Meanwhile, they are anxiously trying to track down their missing coworkers. As of this morning, O’Connor told us that he has only been able to make contact with 26 of 53 CityBusiness staffers.

Tune in at 12 noon Pacific, 3 PM Eastern for Peter Morris’ live interview with Terry O’Connor. And we welcome your calls and emails.

It's His Show

2005-08-31T11:00:00.000-07:00

Regular listeners to Peter Morris know his theories are by no means limited to business and finance. He frequently offers sophisticated hypotheses on issues ranging from dwarf-tossing to dating. Last week, Peter shared a nascent thesis on the psychological impact of 1950’s and 60’s music lyrics. It went something like this: many songs of the era, such as “It’s My Party (and I’ll Cry if I Want To)” helped foster narcissism and sense of entitlement in the baby boomer generation. Apparently apropos of nothing, I was asked to try and book the artist who sang “It’s My Party”, Lesley Gore, on the show. Well, The Business Shrink must have some kind of pop cultural sixth sense: I contacted Gore’s people, and it turns out she has just recently put out her first album in more than 30 years. And it’s getting some decent reviews. So on Friday’s show, Peter will get to test out his theory with the legendary singer.

Katrina Relief Efforts

2005-08-30T17:59:00.000-07:00

The Business Shrink's thoughts are with the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Here is a list of of relief agencies accepting contributions.

Plot Construction

2005-08-30T10:15:00.000-07:00

Among his many other projects, Peter Morris is working on a deal to invest in a cemetery and mortuary business. So he had a lot to talk about Friday with Jay Boileau, Vice-President of Technology at Forever Cemeteries and the Forever Network which includes Hollywood Forever, Fernwood in Mill Valley, among other innovative cemeteries. Forever is a leader in the burgeoning, ecologically sustainable-burial business. Boileau and his partner, Tyler Cassity, were also the subjects of a documentary which served as the inspiration for the HBO show Six Feet Under. And Cassity was profiled this week in the New Yorker.

Green Business?

2005-08-30T10:14:00.000-07:00

Peter Morris’ business acumen is legendary, but he appeared to be in somewhat uncharted territory when talking with Kevin Reed, proprietor of the Green Cross medical marijuana dispensary in San Francisco, on Friday’s show. Admittedly the details of Reed’s business model were a little hazy. At various times during the interview, Reed referred to his outlet as place non-profit, a cooperative, and “like any other business.” Finally, Peter pinned him down:

Q: But Kevin what’s your revenue model? I still don’t understand how you make money as a businessman?

A: It’s not really about making money,” Reed responded. Instead, he said, he is sort of like a social worker, providing a safe, clean place for people to obtain their legal medication.

Reed did provide a few details on inventory and pricing: his club charges $300 an ounce for its products, assorted dried marijuana buds sold under names like "Juicy Fruit" and "Wonder Woman".

Unlike Peter, who is based in Chicago, I live in SF, where pot clubs have sprouted up in virtually every neighborhood. I am not a card-carrying member, but my local dispensary is conveniently located next to a Safeway and a few doors down from a US Post Office. There are now so many such establishments in San Francisco-- more than McDonald's and Burger King outlets combined --that some neighbors are starting to complain about noise and smell. And even our most liberal city officials are debating cracking down, if only to save the clubs – and the medical marijuana movement- from a public backlash. For his part, Reed - a former mobile-home salesman from Alabama- told Peter that he supports tightening regulations. "They want to regulate it (only) as much as they would a pub or a bar," he said.

Welcome to the Business Shrink blog!

2005-08-30T10:11:00.000-07:00

My name is Dan Zoll and I am the new producer of The Business Shrink, a unique radio show devoted to the psychology and strategy of business. Every weekday, host Peter Morris interviews the nation’s leading authors, academics, journalists and other experts on business and culture. Peter’s own cutting edge insights draw on his years of experience as a successful real estate developer and entrepreneur. You can read more about Peter Morris here. And he is available to answer your questions by phone or email.

The show can be heard daily on Sirius satellite radio, Wisdom Radio Stream 132, as well as WRTN in New York and WZIN in Puerto Rico and the Virgin islands.