Buckshots

     In my time at Simon, there was something mysterious and magical about the leadership I enjoyed from Fred Simon.   He was in charge of the   7-8 of us, who leased our malls to retailers.   Fred’s demonstrated skills have formed my views on how leadership, team work and business organization work best.        I have had many bosses, who dictated what they wanted done and “…by God, it better happen.”  Fred, by contrast was a LEADER…he shared your fox hole, showed you how to get a job done and spent time assessing what went right or wrong…always teaching and cultivating success.  I could learn more from Fred in an hour than I could learn from others in a year.  He was always funny, deferential, humble and I have attempted to emulate his lessons as I have led my own organizations.       He was low key, cared about others and taught me all parties had to benefit or it would go sour for everyone.  People say this all the time, but rarely practice it.         One of the gre

      In the mid-80’s, my employer, The Limited Stores, Inc. bought the Henri Bendel store, on 57th Street in Manhattan.   A plan was developed to build a new glitzy store around the corner on 5th Avenue.   Ultimately, we were to open these high end Bendel stores in all the appropriate markets.        My Limited Stores colleague, Jamie Bersani and I were in New York  after the purchase and decided to see the store, before the relocation.  As a leader of our real estate department, I was always ready to demonstrate my extensive knowledge of Manhattan real estate.         Jamie and I walked out onto the street, entered a parked cab and asked to be driven to the Henri Bendel store.  This was one of those old time stoic, gruff New York taxi drivers.  He turned in his seat, with a cigar clamped in his teeth and asked, “Henri Bendel on 57th Street?”         “Yes.”        He grunted a laugh and pointed with his thumb across the street.   “It’s right there.”  Oh…yeah…well, OK

      I have spent my entire life negotiating.   If I had to come up with the common denominator in all I have done in my years, it has been attempting to convince others not to abandon me, kill me, fire me, to love me, to bend to my will and generally agree to my way of thinking.   I enjoy the lessons I have learned, watching others negotiate to get their needs met.      One of the best examples in negotiation was taught to me by the owner of a small drug store.  We added his store to a mid-sized mall and prepared for his opening.  His lease was favorable to the landlord and he was not particularly sophisticated due to the honest, direct manner in which he did business.      Inside the mall stood a large, leafy tree in front of his store and he felt it hid his sign.  He asked to have it removed.  No one was responding to him and he finally found me.  I agreed to visit with him, we walked the mall and he quietly said he wanted the tree replaced with shorter plants.  I explaine

      I spent a great part of my life attempting to collect and understand information, only learning later I had it wrong from the beginning.      As a child of the 1950’s, I was shunted to the side when asking questions or misinterpreted the scraps of details given to me.      Some of the citizens of Charlottesville, Virginia, were recently protesting the city council approving the sale of statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.  In our melting pot of American cities, where folks move in and out from other locations, these monuments are not as popular with the majority, as they were in an earlier age.  The protesters met shouts of, “The war is over, the South lost…get over it.”  This would not have played well in an earlier age in Charlottesville or my home of Sherman, Texas.      We have one of the earliest monuments to the Confederate soldiers in the country, sitting on the Grayson County courthouse square.  As a young child, I thought they had selected a dead con

    One of my greatest regrets, is the cavalier attitude I often took with the females of my youth.  In retrospect, I seemed to mount a "full court press" and would pursue a young lady with vigor to attain her attention and affection.  Once the relationship was established, she assumed I wanted us to be together, while in reality I wanted out.    I fear I was simply lonely.  Even in a relationship, I would feel alone, with no sense of romance or enjoyment of the individual's company.  This led to slowly becoming irritated with the need to appear interested,  even though I was the one who had aggressively  pursued the liaison.  I would become annoyed that she expected to see me on a consistent basis, simply because I had led her to believe this is what I wanted.  Eventually we would stop seeing one another.  I felt like a heel, she would often weep, asking why this was happening and I had no good answer, other than I was an immature jerk, who enjoyed the chase. Once th

      One of my early shopping center career initiatives was championing the rights of women to be the same as men...to pee for free.      They shouldn’t have to deal with pay toilets simply because nature requires them to sit when emptying their bladders.      I took on the “COMPENSATION FOR URINATION” cartel very early.   Women, who made up the bulk of our customers, were treated unfairly when they had to plan their shopping around available restrooms.  We were begging them to shop with us, while forcing them to wonder if they had correct change in the event of a needed rest room break.       After graduating from college in Texas, I wanted to get in the shopping mall business and understood this would be at the entry level.  I cheerfully accepted a salary reduction from my part-time job at Channel 12,  to full-time “slave wages” as the Promotion Director of Mounds Mall in Anderson, Indiana, owned by Melvin Simon and Associates of Indianapolis.  I had never been north

    I had a few issues with my parents growing up, but I will always be grateful to them for instilling a strong faith into all of their children.   From an early age, my folks taught us to believe in eternal life.   I believe all my friends, family, loved ones and dogs are in heaven, where one day we will all be reunited forever.          It is hard to lose someone and the “support” group at that time can make it easier or much worse.  My little brother Bob was killed in a bicycle accident in December 1967, when I was a senior in high school.  It was devastating for our family and I felt sympathy from everyone, but folks are just at a loss.         Mostly, people look at you sadly, avoid eye contact and say nothing or something well intended,  but stupid.  Comments like, “the heavenly choir simply needed a new voice” or “he is home and is at peace”, do not comfort.  It is not that they don’t want to help, they simply don’t know what to do or say.      Except for my f