February 1, 1992
Minutes of Executive Management Committee Meeting
Attending: Irving M. d’Bose, CEO; Scott Smith, CFO; John Belx, VP-Marketing
Mr. Belx opened the meeting by detailing AB’s participation in efforts to lobby Congress on upcoming trade legislation. Belx believed that AB had a responsibility as a major US corporation to guard its interests and protect its employees jobs. Belx noted that the lobbyists from the US Chamber of Commerce, the American Manufacturer’s Association, and the Washington law firm of Hughes, Lewis, and Dewey would be representing AB interests in Congress as trade treaties with Canada, Mexico, and the European common market are debated.
Mr. Smith presented a proposal to re-engineer all of the company’s business practices. Smith reviewed a proposal from the McCormick group, one of the leading re-engineering consulting firms in the US, to lead the study and help retrain employees in the new, more systemized business processes. McCormick Group estimated their fees at $2 million and that the work would take about two years. Mr. d’Bose and Mr. Belx both questioned the study, the price, and the costs. Mr. Smith insisted that the study was needed, the costs were justified, and that he knew the work could be competed in two years. Mr. Smith stated they should approve the contract at this time and noted that he had invited McCormick executives to give a brief presentation to the Executive group at their next meeting. Mr. d’Bose agreed and okayed the contract.
Authors of the article
Wayne L. Strom, PhD, is a professor of behavioral science at Pepperdine’s Graziadio School of Business and Management. As an active consultant to executives and organizations, Dr. Strom has worked with a long list of local and multinational corporations in Europe, Asia, and the United States, including ABC-TV, Baxter Healthcare, CB-Richard Ellis, Citicorp, Consolidated Capital, The Culver Studios, SmithKline, Southern California Edison, Toshiba America, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Yamaha. His current focus is on leadership processes for corporate renewal and the development of businesses as continuous improvement/learning organizations. He has served as associate dean, director of graduate programs, and chair of various academic committees. In 1986, he founded the Pepperdine Civic Leadership project, and in 1991, he was selected as a Harriet and Charles Luckman Distinguished Teaching Fellow in 1991. Currently he enlists executives in coaching employable but unemployed and homeless men and women for job searching skills.
W. Scott Sherman, PhD, earned his doctorate in Business from Texas A&M University after working for more than 20 years in the newspaper industry. Dr. Sherman has taught at Texas A&M University, Pepperdine University, and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. Sherman has published in the Journal of Business Entrepreneurship, The Academy of Management Review, and as a contributing author to several books on leadership in the 21st Century sponsored by the U.S. Army. He is also the founding editor of the Graziadio Business Review. Sherman now lives in his native Texas, teaches strategy and organizational change at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, does research and consulting with a variety of organizations and follows his avocational passion of landscape photography.
