By Cindy Chen
On Wednesday, March 29, David Brown presented “Lessons from Business Wars” in Isaacs Auditorium.
Brown began by asking the audience to count the number of letter F’s in the following sentence: “Finished files are the result of years of scientific study combined with the experience of years.” He then polled for answers, which ranged from three to six, depending on the audience member.
The correct response was six; however, many people will say three because we have read the word “of” so many times in our lives, that our brain tends to disregard it.
Whether or not one got the answer right was not important since the takeaway from this exercise was how easily small details escape our attention. According to Brown, this is crucial for business students to keep in mind as “missing details contain pitfalls and loss of opportunities to gain an upper hand on rivals.”
Brown’s brain teaser was followed by anecdotes on Ruth Handler, the wife of Elliot Handler (co-founder of Mattel Toymakers) and the absence of Dasani in British stores. In the mid 1950s, the Handlers took a vacation in Germany, and during their stay, they were introduced to the Bild Lilli Doll, which inspired them to create Barbie—one of Mattel’s best-selling toys.
Although Dasani water is commonly found in the U.S., they cannot be bought in the UK. In the 1980s, an episode of the British sitcom Only Fools and Horses featured its protagonists bottling tap water and labeling it as spring water to make a quick buck. This episode instilled a certain suspicion in the British regarding bottled water, so when reporters discovered that Dasani was in fact just filtered tap water, consumers boycotted the product.
While these two stories may seem unrelated, they both show that there’s more to business than someone typing at the keyboard all day.
In Brown’s words, business is human, “It’s full of surprises, defeats, beginnings and endings.”
Brown concludes his lecture with one last anecdote about Domino’s. In 2009, the company reached out to its consumers via social media to ask what they could do to improve their pizza. Feedback from consumers initiated changes in the company’s recipe, and the business soon went from failing to being leader in the market.
Not only does Domino’s story demonstrate how important it is to connect with consumers, but it also emphasizes the need to embrace failure. Without admitting that their recipe had issues—Brown stressed—Domino’s would have not been able to reach the height they are at now.
Before exiting the stage, Brown pivots from anecdotes to give the audience a piece of powerful advice.
Looking into the crowd, he says his final words of the night,“Instead of waiting for fate to come and kiss you, you can make the decision to write your own story.”