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November 27, 1998/ 8 Kislev 5759, Vol. 51, No. 10
Ego trip: Edgar Bronfman's memoir contains little business insightMARTHA GERSHUNIn December of 1997, Edgar Bronfman Jr., chief executive officer of Seagram Co., became the first American businessman to take delivery of the newest, fanciest toy designed for the upper tier of corporate executives - his very own Gulfstream G-V corporate jet, priced at more than $38 million.A few months later his father, the first Edgar Bronfman, chairman of Seagram Co., published his memoir, "Good Spirits: The Making of a Businessman" (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1998, $25.95 hard cover). It's hard to say which gesture was the greater act of hubris in a family hardly lacking in egos. The son buys an unbelievably expensive airplane with shareholder money, while the father writes a book in which he takes personal credit for every good business decision, casual piece of luck, or act of God that occurs during his watch. We can only hope that the younger Bronfman is a better passenger than his father is an author. "Good Spirits" tells the story of the elder Bronfman's extraordinary rise to power with the Montreal-based Seagram Co. - from his first job in 1951 as an accounts payable clerk, to his assumption of the presidency in 1971, to his appointment as chairman in 1975 (and his subsequent decision to relinquish the job of president to his son in 1994). During the 47 years since he first went to work in the family liquor business at the age of 22, Bronfman has overseen Seagram's acquisition of many of the world's dominant beverage brands, including Mumm (1970), Glenlivit (1978), Martell (1988), and Tropicana (1988). He was also instrumental in Seagram's 1963 purchase of the Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Co. and presided over the firm's 1981 acquisition of $2.6 billion in Conoco stock, and the subsequent sale of that stock to DuPont for 20.2 percent of that conglomerate's shares. With so much wheeling and dealing and just plain business growth going on, you'd expect this to be a gripping story. Unfortunately, Bronfman's enormous ego takes center stage to every anecdote in "Good Spirits." This is not the insightful, reflective memoir of a wise businessman seeking to impart his "lessons learned" to the next generation. This is a collection of rambling, self-aggrandizing anecdotes penned by a conceited, pompous executive who insists on seeing one moral to every business tale: "It is to my credit that this situation worked out so well." Bronfman even takes his self-congratulations to ridiculous extremes when recounting episodes in his personal life. He takes great pride in telling the reader that he was able to predict the number and gender of his many children, well before the first was born. And he says of the birth of his fourth child, and business successor, Edgar Jr.: "I also remember telling Ann on the night of his conception that the date of his birth would be May 16, and I was right." Even Bronfman's account of the kidnapping and subsequent rescue of his eldest son, Sam, in 1975, is marred by his self-centered summation of the events: "The following week, John Loeb, Sam's maternal grandfather, sent me a letter declaring that it probably wouldn't have worked out so well had it not been for my 'bravery.' " Mind you, this is not a life lived without good works. Bronfman is president of the World Jewish Congress and president of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, which is devoted to seeing that justice is done in the case of Swiss banks and other institutions throughout Europe that were depositories of Jewish wealth during the 1939-45 period and whose owners perished in the Holocaust. He is also chairman for the Foundation for Jewish Campus Life (Hillel), the world-wide organization uniting Jewish students on college and university campuses. None of which makes him a good author or a humble man. Bronfman apparently realized himself at some point that his story offered little that would be useful to would-be corporate executives or even to a more general audience, so he threw in a chapter of business advice at the end. Titled "A Distillation," (get it?) this final segment essentially amounts to a laundry list of aphorisms without context. "Before I close, I have learned a few things about business and life which I should like to pass along," Bronfman writes. This, after 222 pages of memoir, which any reasonable author would have used to do exactly that. Martha Gershun is president of MG Consulting and holds an MBA degree from the Harvard Business School. This review was originally published by the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle and was distributed by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. |
