Published Work

Comic Book Super Heroes Teach Us About Business

Though I'm a huge movie fan, I haven't been much of a comic book reader since I was 12. The stream of 40-year-old Marvel comic book heroes who have been brought to life on the movie screen over the past year made me realize what each of them has to teach us about business. Spider-Man My son's favorite super hero, Spider-Man, has become one of the top-grossing films of all time ($800 million). Peter Parker's alter ego constantly reminds us that "with great power comes great responsibility." He even gives up the girl for it!

This is true if we run a company where we are responsible for our employees every day but we have an equal obligation to fellow co-workers. Every newspaper or online publication that reports on our community has a duty to understand the effect of the power of the press.

They need to wield the big stick that society gives them with great care. Crain's, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times and ePrairie are influencers in the Chicago community.

Government organizations and other associations that influence and participate in the local technology segment include the Illinois Coalition, DCEO, the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center, the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, the Chicago Software Association, the Women's Business Development Center and World Business Chicago.

With whatever power we have with our peers, our vendors and customers, we have a responsibility to do our best to support them and have a positive influence on them. The only way good things get built is if we all carry the piece we're charged to manage.

X-Men

In this story, there are men and women born with strange powers. As mutants use their awesome abilities to protect a world that sometimes hates or fears them, we love them because the first movie grossed $350 million. Some of the mutants want to take over the world while others want to live in peace with fellow mankind.

This reminded me that in business, whenever people are different, it is difficult to get along. It always gets in the way of building a strong company.

When I started to run companies 15 years ago, I began to understand why we all work together. In any group, people look for reasons to band together for support. This usually takes the form of singling people out. Unfortunately, these actions enable people in the accusing group to raise themselves up and feel better by making others feel worse.

I always marveled at the fact that when I had 30 people in a single office, they would find the silliest ways to separate themselves. It wasn't always the traditional company divisions: things like the salespeople disliking the marketing people or the finance group at odds with the operations team.

It took a different twist. The people in the back of the office didn't like the people in the front of the office because they liked the heat on too high or played their music too loud or kept their desks messy. The strangest arguments arouse that I could never predict or prevent.

If people are to work together as a team and be effective, they must accept these differences. You don't have to like everyone at work. You just need to be able to respect what they contribute to the organization.

This is one reason why many mergers of two corporations never work. According to a 2001 study by A.T. Kearney, 34,000 mergers and acquisitions took place from 1997 to 2000. Some famous ones include AOL and Time Warner; RCN and 21st Century; marchFIRST and USWeb/CKS; and Deutsche Telekom and VoiceStream.

According to A.T. Kearney, 58 percent of all mergers and acquisitions fail to reach their goal of increased stock prices and profitability. In many cases, it actually decreases the value of the two companies. Believe it or not, Northwestern University and the University of Chicago almost merged in 1933. Imagine what that could have been like.

A.T. Kearney says one of the major reasons that mergers fail is that they can't overcome major differences in corporate culture because there are a series of "unspoken social contracts" in any organization.

"The larger or acquiring partner simply tries to impose its own corporate culture on the other partner," the study cites. "While this approach can be valid in some cases, it can destroy the value the merger was supposed to create."

The study suggests that companies need to be thoughtful about an appropriate corporate culture for the merged companies. They should not simply impose one.

The Hulk

Bruce Banner finds himself transformed into the Hulk, a powerful green beast. This happens only during times of stress and anger when his repressed rage comes out. Do you feel a little green when you get mad sometimes?

This is reminiscent of how people act when their emotions get the best of them in a business situation. How do they react under stress? It is easy to be in a business when all is going well. Your skills are truly tested when things are going poorly.

When Jodi Turek co founded WomensForum.com in 1996, her business partner also happened to be her fiance. The stress of merging business with a personal relationship proved too much for either one of them and they called off the marriage.

Still, they were able to forge ahead. The company currently is the No. 2 community for women online and is visited by 8 million women and girls each month. The company now develops revenue opportunities for its partner Web sites by offering marketing strategies to the world's leading brands who seek out female consumers.

Daredevil

Matt Murdock was blinded by radioactive waste from a vehicle's payload when it splashed onto his eyes. Though he was devastated at first by his handicap, he soon realized that his handicap had heightened his other senses to a super human degree.

Using sound, he now tracks down criminals with these new powers to avenge his father's death.

All companies we are a part of have handicaps. We are good at some things and bad at others. It is our responsibility to figure out the business skills we can use to beat our competition.

ConferenceSeek is one of many companies that offer online continuing education. In order to compete in this area, CEO Amy Ravi has aimed her company at the health care industry. ConferenceSeek converts conference content into continuing education courses as interactive audio presentation archives on the Web.

Let me know what you think Captain America and the Fantastic Four can teach us. Marvel Comics has more than 4,700 proprietary super heroes in its collection. We all have a lot to learn.