Americans

"Grit, Rigour, Humour. It applies equally to our sports ventures. Business doesn’t always go swimmingly. It can be challenging, unpleasant, even dirty. We can’t have people shy away from facing up to the tough times. Grit is an essential quality. Rigour is the opposite of winging it. Lack of rigour doesn’t cut it in INEOS. Do your job fully, and well, and with pride. Prepare thoroughly and if you don’t know the answer to a question say so, but never twice. In my humble opinion the Americans do rigour better than anyone because they exist in such a competitive marketplace. The UK is slipping. And humour simply makes the world go around. Life is short and to be enjoyed. Personally, I struggle if life is too dry. You need to enjoy some banter, and don’t get too hung up on the woke agenda."

"Foreign investors were the biggest losers in U.S. rail projects. The British, in particular, couldn't resist bankrolling the emerging U.S. market in the mid-1800s, just as Americans couldn't resist bankrolling emerging Asian markets in the late 1900s. Much British capital was lost in what turned out to be a gigantic, albeit unintended, charitable contribution to U.S. track laying and road building. Heed it well, ye global capitalists! Fast growth in the latest emerging phenom doesn't necessarily mean fat profits for foreign enthusiasts. The U.S. railroads proved that."

"While the Americans carry out less stringent manufacturing controls and prefer to smilingly give a brand new tire to the dissatisfied customer, Michelin professes an unwavering faith in its control and rarely admits that one can invoke a failure of its products. This mindset drives it to take a very strict position that customers often judge as ‘non-commercial’: Michelin is always right.”"

"“That’s how it all started—our relationship with contract manufacturing,” Gassée says. “As opposed to just getting the pieces like a disk drive and then assembling it ourselves. It started a culture of relying on, mostly, Japanese manufacturers.” The cost and quality of what Sony did, he says, awakened many to the capabilities of the Japanese in particular and outsourcers in general. “They were very good, and it was clear to me that we—the Americans—had no way to compete with what they did.”"

"His role wasn’t just translating language; he got to interpret culture for wealthy executives and travel well beyond the usual tourist meccas. All his previous conversations about culture were suddenly relevant. Repeatedly he’d find himself explaining different modes of thinking to frustrated Western clients. “We Americans have a phrase, ‘Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me,” he’d tell his clients. “The Chinese version of that is a little different. The general explanation of it is, ‘If I cheat you and you don’t catch me, it’s your fault.’ ”"

"The concept of saving face was one he’d constantly clarify. Sometimes Americans would think of Chinese people as bad drivers because if they were cut off, the offending motorist could seem oblivious of the whole situation. “We’re just misunderstanding the way that they think about driving,” he says. “If I look at you and apologize for cutting you off, I lose face—I’ve acknowledged my error. The best way to avoid losing face is to not acknowledge the error. So if I cut you off in traffic, I just don’t look at you.”"

"Striving for the Output Sometimes no amount of discussion will produce a consensus, yet the time for a decision has clearly arrived. When this happens, the senior person (or “peer-plus-one”) who until now has guided, coached, and prodded the group along has no choice but to make a decision himself. If the decision-making process has proceeded correctly up to this point, the senior manager will be making the decision having had the full benefit of free discussion wherein all points of view, facts, opinions, and judgments were aired without position-power prejudice. In other words, it is legitimate—in fact, sometimes unavoidable—for the senior person to wield position-power authority if the clear decision stage is reached and no consensus has developed. It is not legitimate—in fact, it is destructive—for him to wield that authority any earlier. This is often not easy. We Americans tend to be reluctant to exercise position power deliberately and explicitly—it is just “not nice” to give orders. Such reluctance on the part of the senior manager can prolong the first phase of the decision-making process—the time of free discussion—past the optimum point, and the decision will be put off."

"He has taken over the world of frames by destroying the competition, humiliating his Italian rivals, buying out the Americans, annihilating the French and Germans."

"However, things are different now. In five years, only 12% of the internet population will be Americans, whereas 50% will be Asians. The number of internet users in China has already surpassed those in the US."

"‘No, Alan! Shit!’ Heatley pleaded. ‘I’ve spent months on this. Our future depends on it. You’re playing Russian roulette! Eighty million dollars is still a lot of money. We can’t afford to lose this. We can do them a more favourable deal.’ Heatley was wretched. It was not simply the $108 million. What if this was the end of the deal altogether? It was a complicated partnership and there was nothing to stop the Americans walking away. The letter Gibbs had dictated had not even made a counter-offer. Heatley would have been prepared to take $80 million to get the deal done. Naturally, $108 million would be better than $80 million, but $80 million was better than no deal at all. No deal now was unthinkable. Gibbs was cool. He knew how much this meant to Heatley, but Gibbs also knew the Americans. ‘No,’ he told Heatley, ‘I know these pricks. I bet they’ll be back by breakfast. This is the way they negotiate. It’s all they know.’ The letter was sent by fax. Heatley waited, more anxious than he had ever been. If it was all over, where would they look for new investors? He did not have long to wait. The Americans replied. Gibbs had been right. The deal was on again, for $108 million. Heatley’s relief was palpable."

"When Kaiser was still in Canada, his right-hand man, A.B. Ordway, asked if Kaiser would give his men Page 20 the Canada Day holiday (July 1) off. Kaiser said no, there was no reason for Americans to observe a Canadian holiday. When Ordway asked if they could have the Fourth of July off, Kaiser said there was no reason to observe an American holiday in Canada. 22 Kaiser was going to squeeze every minute of labor he could from his men."

"the scholar Carlos Martínez Assad gives an account of a testimony in "The Lebanese, a model of adaptation", in the book Veracruz: Port of Arrival, in which he recounts that "when the Americans invaded Veracruz"

"And his plan works out: for his exhibitions, the vivacious widow lends him numerous works by Klee. She will not give him any as a gift, as she is obsessed with jewelry, exchanging Kandinsky's originals only for jewels from the house of Van Cleef & Arpels. It remains to be noted: Before Berggruen styled himself as a "Picasso friend," he focused on Klee. In doing so, he was eyeing America. There, Klee is still relatively unknown. Berggruen wants to open the eyes of Americans to the genius."

"Meantime, Gibbs and Richwhite ruminated constantly on how they could make the maximum amount of money out of the deal. Initially, reflecting their different mindsets, Richwhite concentrated on extracting the largest possible merchant banking fee from the Americans, while Gibbs focused on gaining an option to take an equity stake in the business. ‘The real value opportunity is to become a principal,’ he repeatedly said. Later Gibbs joked that he was happy to ignore the fee if he got an option, but Richwhite quickly decided that they needed the option *and* the fee. But Gibbs’ quest for a slice of the action was critical to their relationship with the Americans; as merchant bankers seeking only a fee, they were servants and the Americans were masters; as partners they stood more as equals."

"Gibbs found himself defending their fee at a negotiating session at the Halekulani Hotel in Hawaii. At times the process was seriously unpleasant. Once again, it was three or four New Zealanders across the table from a lineup of dozens of Americans. Working on the principle, however, that ‘the art of a good deal is to make the other guy feel he’s won’, Gibbs concentrated on yielding, after much anguish, concessions that made his partners feel like they had made substantial gains, while at the same time proposing seemingly innocuous gestures in return that actually more than balanced in value everything that he had conceded."

"Parallel to Cameron’s valuation effort, Gibbs did his usual single piece of A4 paper analysis of how much Telecom might be worth: ‘It wasn’t hard for Telecom,’ he says. ‘It was a lovely, fat company, with huge margins and a lazy balance sheet. It was obvious that if you could keep the margins it would be a fantastic business.’ He told the Americans that they wouldn’t get it for less than a price-to-earnings ratio of 12, which with earnings a little over $300 million, put the price around $4 billion. It was a long, steady process to reveal to them the value in the business."