Entries for November 2006

Whom does protectionism really protect? Too often, it protects the weakest competitors–while allowing them to get weaker. In a Darwinian way, protectionism also benefits the very people you're trying to protect yourself against. By making it harder for the threatening firms or nations to compete on your home turf, it forces them to adapt to a tough environment, which makes them even tougher. And if the dikes ever fall and protections disappear, the adapters thrive while the pampered perish.

It seemed a fitting display of futility: a recently thumped president listening to the gripes of America's besieged auto executives.

Business leaders love to emulate battlefield commanders as they deploy their troops and make critical decisions. That's why otherwise-arcane military books like The Art of War by Sun Tzu and On War by Carl von Clausewitz remain brisk sellers: They're considered obligatory titles on the bookshelf of any executive with a taste for corporate battle.

Richard Tedlow's new biography of Andy Grove has a thoughtful subtitle: "The Life and Times of an American." Our brains have been conditioned to expect one more oversaturated word at the end of phrases like that: American hero, American journey, American icon. But Tedlow, a Harvard Business School professor, does us a favor with his understatement, reminding us that Grove was ordinary before he was extraordinary.