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Thou shalt not tell the unsweetened truth
July 23, 2008
I have reviewed a new book by Donald Keough, the former president of Coca-Cola, called The Ten Commandments of Business Failure in tomorrow’s FT.
Here are the first few paragraphs of the review:
The thing that bothers me about this book is the author’s grandfather’s toe. According to Donald Keough, the former president of Coca-Cola and life-long friend of Warren Buffett, his grandfather John was an Iowa homesteader who was cutting wood one day when “he swung the axe and cut off his toe. He simply shoved the toe back on, bound it up with burlap, and finished his work… the toe, the foot and my grandfather survived.”
I am sorry, but I do not believe that. You cannot amputate a toe, fasten it back on with a bit of cloth and re-attach it, bones, tendons, muscle and all. This is the kind of hearsay that goes down well in a bar, where standards of proof are low, but would not work in a court of law.
Grandpa Keough’s toe sticks out, so to speak, but the rest of Keough’s narrative also has a touch of Irish-American blarney. There is plenty of tough, no-nonsense advice dispensed here, much of it undeniably valid, but is it the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
The evidence suggests not. Keough has plenty of stories he could tell about Coca-Cola, where he served as president under chief executive Roberto Goizueta and then joined the board. From this vantage point, he not only oversaw what Coke’s chief executives did but also had a fearsome reputation for interfering.
You can read the rest here. Feel free to leave comments below.
