Martin P. Levin - All I Know About Management I Learned from My Dog: The Real Story of Angel, a Rescued Golden Retriever, Who Inspired the New Four Golden Rules of Management

I admit that Angel is my favorite companion when I go shopping. After testing the circular route, she will, on command, now jump in the backseat and land softly relatively speaking. Once we get going, Angel pokes her head out her window, on the right-hand side, and observes passersby. She never barks at dogs that we pass, because she is saying to herself, Why bother when you are walking and here I am riding in a car? When I leave her in the car, I leave her window open, pat her head, stroke her ears, and say, Ill be back. She stays at the window for a moment and then stretches out on the seat. When I return, she is sound asleep.

When she hears the door swing open, she gets up, shakes her head, so that the tags on her neck ring, and is ready to go refreshed for the return trip home. These naps do not interfere with Angels unvarying schedule of finishing dinner, licking her chops, drinking water to wash the food down, and making it to bed by 7:00 P.M. for her obligatory twelve hours of rest (excluding the various daytime naps).

For humans, there are many more issues than sleep and a protective environment. Staying young has long been the subject of philosophers and writers, from Aristotle to the present, and this is not an exaggeration. In the complex management environment, staying young is essential, and there are a number issues involved in remaining so.

Some advise us to disregard nonessential numbers such as age, weight, and height. Song writers advise us to collect friends and put on a happy smile. I, for one, weigh in on the side of those who urge us to keep learning. Going to law school, my childhood dream, which I realized at the age of sixty-one and my subsequent career have, I strongly believe now at the age of ninety-one, kept me feeling young and useful. Norman Cousins, the famous publisher, when incorrectly diagnosed as having a fatal illness, turned to laughter to pull him through. If you look further, there is more to his story than the simple commandment to stay young. Almost every writer of any stature has weighed in on this subject, but to my mind, one of the most touching examples of the importance of staying young is the documentary film, Young Heart , in which a chorus of seniors, who range in age from seventy to eighty, are taught the songs of Jimi Hendrix and others. They enjoy the rigors of performing. The film is a command: No matter what your age, stay young at heart.

I am advised by Angel that, as far as she is concerned, I have covered the essential, but she informs me that if I take regular naps and stay young at heart, she expects more from me - there is much more to come. She has referred me to her reading on Heraclitus, the Greek scholar who lived in the period from 535 B.C. to 475 B.C., and who is known for the doctrine of change. He said, Angel tells me, that you cannot step in the same river twice because everything flows, nothing stands still.

I HAVE SELECTED, FROM THE MANY BOOKS THAT I ENJOYED in preparing this little monograph, a short list of books I feel are worth reading. If you are interested in management (or in dogs), you will spend many a happy hour reading, as did I.

ALL ABOUT DOGS

Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson, Animals in Translation (New York: Harcourt, Inc. 2005).

Steven P Hicks, ed., What Philosophy Can Tell You About Your Dog (New York, Open Court, 2008).

Konrad Lorenz, Man Meets Dog (New York: Kodansha International, 1994, originally published in German in 1953).

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Hidden Life of Dogs (New York: Pocket Books, 1993).

Alexandra Horowitz, Inside a Dog (New York: Scribner, 2009).

Victoria Schade, Bonding With Your Dog (New York: Wiley, 2009).

Les Krantz, Power of the Dog (New York: St. Martins Press, 2009).

MANAGEMENT OLD AND NEW FRIENDS

Peter F. Drucker, The Practice of Management (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954).

Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr., In Search of Excellence (New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Originally published in 1982).

William F. Baker and Michael OMalley, Leading With Kindness (New York: AMACON, 2008).

Allan and Barbara Pease, The Definitive Book of Body Language (New York: Bantam, 2006).

Jonah Lehrer, How We Decide (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009).

Ken Auletta, Googled: The End of the World as We Know It (New York: Penguin, 2009).

Don and Renee Martin, The Risk Takers (New York: Vanguard, 2010).

GREAT TRUE-LIFE DOG STORIES

Ted Kerasote, Merles Door (Orlando, Florida: Harcourt, 2007).

Jon Katz, Izzy & Leonore (New York: Villard Books, 2008). Lt. Col. Jay Kopleman, with Melinda Roth, From Baghdad with Love (Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press, 2006).

Kathryn Miles, Adventures with Ari (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2009).

Dick Wolfsie, Mornings with Barney , (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2009).

Mark R. Levin, Rescuing Sprite (New York: Pocket Books, 2007).

ABOUT THE PLAYERS

MARTIN LEVIN began career in book publishing in 1950 at Grosset & Dunlap (now a part of Penguin). Starting as the assistant to the assistant sales manager, he rose through the organization to become the COO and a member of the board of directors. In July 1966, he was recruited by the Times Mirror Company, a Los Angeles company that was the publisher of the Los Angeles Times , to be the president of the Book Group and a vice president of the parent company. Times Mirror had acquired New American Library, one of the big three paperback houses in the United States, and wished to increase its publishing portfolio. From 1966 until his retirement in December 1983, Mr. Levin became a formidable presence in trade and professional publishing, so that by 1980 the Times Mirror Book Group was the fifth-largest publishing entity in the United States. He also served a term as the president of the American Association of Publishers and was deeply involved in the both the Moscow and Jerusalem books fairs.

When he was sixty-one, in preparation for his retirement, Mr. Levin enrolled at New York Law School. Keeping his day job, he attended night school, graduating in June 1983 and retiring from Times Mirror in December 1983. Mr. Levin passed the bar exam and was admitted to the practice of law in June 1984. He joined the law firm of Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman, P.C., one of the leading intellectual-property firms in the United States in 1985 and shortly thereafter became the co-director of the Mergers and Acquisition division of Cowan.