Another Sitcom inspired post

Hidden business advice in Mad Men

Mad Men
A show based in the early 60s that follows the men who run one of the top advertising agency in New York, Sterling Cooper, located on Madison Avenue (hence "Mad" Men). Great show that provides researched backed insight on the social and cultural aspect of life in NY at that time, the American dream, the WASP way of life and most of all... the birth of modern advertising and marketing. Check out the trailer:


Highly recommended. I consider this show to be up there with The Wire and Sopranos, and therefore it made my top 3 best drama show list.

But i digress...

I wanted to break down a scene from season 2, which I found quite inspirational when I saw it. Now, before I go on, please do not take this post too seriously. I obviously do not turn to HBO or Showtime for career and management advice ok? However sometimes there's some hidden knowledge in good TV, so bear with me.


The following scene takes place right after Sterling Cooper was bought out by a large British corporation. At the table, we have in order of appearance:
- the show's main character, Don, the agency's Creative Director, but also one if not THE pillar of the company thanks to in addition to his creative talents, a keenly developed business sense.
- Duck Phillips, a Business Development expert who arrived in the company a few months back,
- two British guys that represent the buyers,
- the first owner of the NY firm, Mr Cooper, (the oldest dude that has a goatee),
- the second owner of the firm, Roger Sterling (gray hair, no beard).

Now that the characters are set, lets talk context.
Don was, for personal reasons, out of the office for 3 weeks. During these 3 weeks, Duck stealthily and hastily set up a buy-out deal between the interested British corporation (whom he had worked with in the past...) and Sterling Cooper. He sold Roger Sterling on the idea because, well the deal represented mucho dollars, and Sterling being in the middle of an expensive divorce could use the cash to retire to the tropics with his mistress.
If I remember correctly, Duke sold the idea to Cooper by basically telling him the agency would keep its name and independence, and that the British corporation would only be bringing in more resources to help Sterling Cooper continue to grow. Rightly so, Cooper had major doubts, but nearing retirement and after consulting with Sterling, he Okay-ed the deal. Something like that, roughly.

Now enters Don after 3 weeks of absence. First off, he is ultimately pissed off, as his hard work these past years explains the firm's success, he was not consulted and he doesn't believe for a second the British have good and long term intentions. He believes they'll take control of the agency, restructure it and sell it for a profit... while during this process kill its soul and creative expertise.
Furthermore, he has no respect for Duck (and Duck sees Don as his arch enemy): while Don is client and quality oriented, and a creative personality, Duck is purely business and billing oriented, and can't stand the independence, freedom, trust and close connection Don has with the owners. Damn this is so REAL.

So Don comes back, he's pissed, but the deal is already signed by Sterling and Cooper so it's too late for him to change their minds.

The British fly to NY and everyone sits at a table, and this starts the scene we'll discuss.

One last piece of info: I think it's standard practice in these types of company to have them make their employees sign exclusivity and non competition contracts for a certain amount of years. Hence a Creative Artist with such a contract could not legally quit and go work for the competition.

Click here for the scene

Ok, so basically one word comes to mind. OUCH!

Now lets break the scene down because there's several interesting concepts here. Of course everything below is subject to interpretation but feel free to comment.

1/ First and valid question asked: now that the Brits bought Sterling Cooper, who's gonna run the agency?
Ofc everyone already knows the answer, but the question had to be asked. Duck will take over. What a victory for him that must be...

Notice Don stays totally cool, however Duck acts like a douche-bag, acts surprised and "humbly" accepts.

So, IMO, his first mistake of the scene is here. There is very rarely need for theatrics in business. In this case everyone knows he initiated and brokered the deal, everyone knows he was aiming for the CEO job (and he got it)... so why act so douchy? It's going to impact the perception his future top management (the 2 British guys) have of him. He's basically not being straight... and that doesn't instill trust.
Oh and gloating over your victory is never good.

Sterling and Cooper's reactions are priceless. Sterling, a no nonsense guy, just points out all of this is obvious. Cooper, a more subtle guy, extends his "warm" congratulations to Duck. I love the look on his face, it says it all.

2/ Duck fires his first shot at Don
Duck then promises to treat the founders of Sterling Cooper with all the respect they deserve... then stares straight at Don... The message here is crystal clear: "Don my boy, you are not a founder, I do no know who you think you are but you do not deserve respect, you are simply a creative and now things are going to change for you...".


3/ The Brits ask Duck to expose his vision regarding the company's future.
And Duck blatantly lies. "I find myself a little unprepared here". Yeah, right. He looses credibility by the second in this scene. Once again: no theatrics. Higher ups don't like this.

He then exposes his plan, which ok maybe it makes sense, but his third major mistake here is that he is now obviously, and for everyone to see, attacking Don. The reason this is a mistake is because he ALREADY WON, so why keep on trying to destroy his rival? This continues to reduce his credibility with everyone at the table and makes him look like an ass.

Don ofc, being the cold blooded business man he is, doesn't flinch.


4/ Enters Don. Cooper asks him what he thinks about Duck's strategy
And ofc, Don goes the opposite route and takes the high road. As you know now that you saw the scene, he could have bashed Duck without a care in the world, as he is leaving the agency. Instead, he says "I think it sounds like a great agency, and I think Duck is the man to run it".
Boom! That's what we call taking the high road!

"I just dont think I'll be part of it."
BOOM!! Checkmate. And perfect timing!

The deal is signed, the Brits are heavily relying on him (Don is after all the locomotive of the company), they flew over to NY, he waited for Duck and his future bosses to be around the table, he waited for Duck to make an ass of himself and demonstrate to the Brits that well... he'll never be able to manage Don and that their relationship would never work, and now BOOM he tells them he wont work for them. That's basically a fatal blow to Duck.


Now if you can please bear with me while I digress a bit, this brings me back to another lesson a great lawyer tried to teach me just a few months back.
- it's all about timing, he told me. Negotiation, politics and management: it's all about timing. You need to think about all of this as if you were playing chess, and you need to think as many moves ahead as you reasonably can, taking in account the information you have and the information they have.

Now ofc I had heard that kind of advice in the past, but the context I was in made that advice truly sink in. I got to see this guy, a "Don in real life" if you will, negotiate a complex multi-layered deal like a freaking chess player, it was great. And his timing... his timing was insane. He knew what the other party was going to say before they said it, he even BAITED them with assertions and assumptions, knowing full well what was going to be replied, to then fire the hard hitting fact or counterargument... He could also steer the conversation one way, get the guy across the table to say something, to then use it 2 hours later...

You see I'm an impulsive guy, and sad to say I'm more like Duck then Don. When I have ammo, I shoot all of it. When I want to take somebody down, I go all out. Or, more reasonably, when I want to get a point across, I throw all my arguments at the problem at once. And I always have been pretty bad at Chess...
So lately I've been taking the time to PLAN. Plan out my strategies, whether they are business strategies, political strategies or personal development strategies. I try to plan, lay out possible outcomes, prepare etc... And I have to admit it's HARD, because I really need to think and rack my brains. However, when a plan works out... it's the greatest feeling in the world.

Ok, so back to Mad Men.

The Brits are surprised and asks Don to repeat himself, which he does once again. "If this is the agency you want, Duck is the man for the job". Duck then goes on attacking Don and his artistic temperament blablabla...

5/Roger asks Don if this is "really necessary?"
And, well... I have to admit this completely goes against my previous point that theatrics are not necessary in business... :P OK you got me... Sometimes they are, but very rarely.
You see, Roger is acting kind of surprised, but both Mr Cooper and Roger are "playing a part": they sold their company for a good sum of money (the deal Duck brokered was good for Sterling Cooper)... and they now intend to as soon as they cash in the check... start a new agency (cf. next season) with Don as a partner.
So yeah, here both Roger Sterling and Mr. Cooper are going to start acting a little bit.


Duck, who still thinks he has the upper hand, goes on bashing Don.
Duck still thinks that for contractual reason, Don will have to give in.. "get with the team" and check his ego at the door.

Duck: Don, you can either honor your contract or either walk out that door with nothing and start selling insurance.
[pause. Once again, PERFECT TIMING :D]
Don: I don't have a contract.

BOOM!

And there you have it, the end of Duck. I also love how Roger pipes in: "we're close, we didn't think we needed one" and the look on the Brit's faces. They just realized they lost Don Draper, who was one if not THE MAIN ASSET of the agency.

The rest, Don's speech, is full of finesse while at the same time very very rough. He basically tells them that the meeting is over and he's ready to talk to the Brits on Monday, hence completely pushing aside Duck.
Then Duck blows up and hammers the last nail in his coffin. The "Duck would you excuse us for a minute" is the end of him.

Good stuff.

And to conclude, I think this scene brings up a final very interesting but surprising question. How can a deal so complex and so big go so wrong because of such a lame and stupid oversight? How could Duck not have checked all of the firm's contracts before he got his former employee to buy out Sterling Cooper? How could the Brits not have checked that as well?
Because it's television and they needed a story? Well, not in my humble opinion.

You see, there are huge amounts of very large deals that go wrong all over the world because of sheer stupidity. A leading French pharmaceutical lab had one of his leading brands stolen by one of their OWN INTERNATIONAL PARTNER in a large developing market because... THEY HAD FORGOTTEN TO REGISTER IT. Once the contract was over, the local partner decided to manufacture a similar drug (probably heavily inspired by the original product's formula...) under the French brand's name and is making tons of money off it.

Danone entered into a joint venture with a Chinese Partner in 96 in order to launch their mineral water in China. Basically the partner was going to produce and distribute locally and Danone was going to give them the know-how and technical data to manufacture. During several years, everything was fine but Danone NEVER SENT an expat to China. Not ONE. This is insane. Several years later Danone wakes up and realizes that their partner's CEO set up parallel companies that are exploiting Danone's know how to manufacture mineral water. Boom. Several years later, Danone left the Chinese mineral water market after buying their shares back from the joint venture...

So how does this happen? How do companies staffed by brilliant minds go so wrong? Human nature, that's why. Back to the Duck example. Duck isn't a bad guy, and he's probably super competent at his job. What got to him to make such huge mistakes were according to me "human factors":

- first, he made it personal. Not good. Your brain is not going to be thinking correctly when its overloaded with emotions born from the fact that you made it personal and created your own "arch nemesis". You are going to want to move fast, move aggressively and probably move recklessly.

- second, maybe the stakes were too high for him (I mean he was just about to be promoted to CEO of a leading NY agency... come on :), and he was not able to manage them properly. Hence an abnormal amount of stress and anxiousness, which once again leads to impaired decision making.


And there are probably other possible explanations... but to conclude this post (congratz to those of made it to here), no matter how big a deal is, how big a company is, how high the manager's IQs are... if they do not know how to manage themselves and their personalities... mistakes will be made.

How to do that is a vast and I would say bounder-less topic, but fascinating. For advice, maybe we should ask Don?

PS: watch the scene again. The acting is insanely good.