Lunch with Rudy A couple weeks ago, I saw former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani give a keynote speech during lunch at the 26th annual DM Days conference held at the Javits Convention Center, here in NYC. Until that afternoon, I had never seen His Honor in the flesh. I was struck by his sense of humor, and by his "take" on 9/11 and how to draw on inner resources in order to move forward. One thing he did say that neatly crossed over to the agenda of the direct marketers in attendance is "if you can measure it, you can manage it." His Honor underscored how important preparation is from a managerial point of view. Prior to 9/11 he thought he might have been overdoing the preparation thing; thereafter, he knew otherwise and wondered if they should have done even more. New York's finest, bravest, and other emergency response teams had indeed practiced such scenarios as that which occurred. Mr. Giuliani noted that New Yorkers didn't act the way they acted because they were New Yorkers, but rather because they were Americans -- the same way people responded that day in Washington DC, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. How do you handle such an overwhelming catastrophe? You suck it up and get on with it, one step at a time, one foot in front of the other, doing first things first. You also employ a sense of humor. When President Bush visited Ground Zero, one of the construction workers ("with arms as big as your legs") gave him a bear hug. A secret service guy leaned over to then- Mayor Giuliani and said, "You know, if he kills the President, you're finished!" While going from Ground Zero up to the Javits Center with the President to visit families of the missing, the streets were lined with tens of thousands of people cheering the President, saying, "We're with you!" Rudy said to Mr. Bush, "You know none of these people voted for you, Mr. President. They didn't vote for me or Governor George Pataki either, for that matter. After all, this is the West side," (which is well known for its Democratic leanings). Mr. Giuliani went on about New Yorkers, saying that as the rest of the country goes one way, New Yorkers typically go the other way. He sometimes thinks New Yorkers wait to see what the rest of the country thinks, and then purposely go the other way. This was funny to New Yorkers and visitors alike. He said he wanted to play the Godfather in the musical (should there ever be one). He said he can't sing, but then again, "Brando can't speak." Can we do more about preparing ourselves and preventing terrorism? Yes, and we should move faster on that score, but then again, we're much more likely to die from other causes. We're all going to die, he points out. The trick is to minimize the risks and keep going, live our lives, and know how fortunate we've got it. Many of you know this newsletter is published in NYC, just blocks away from Ground Zero. In those very dark hours directly thereafter, this incredible man set an example for New Yorkers, and for the rest of the country, for that matter. As he pointed out, we're all human and we make mistakes. During his administration he made a few. But in the fell clutch of circumstance, he was there to set one heck of an example. Seeing him in person and understanding more about what makes him tick and how he did what he did was a life highlight for me. |
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