Neiman-Marcus along with the city of Dallas, celebrated the 90th birthday of Stanley Marcusin April. The Neiman-Marcus Group is now owned by Boston-based Harcourt General. But the former CEO ofthe fabled department store remains a well-known local figure. The oldest of four sons, Stanley wasalready a leader in the fashion industry when the board named him CEO in 1950, after the death of hisfather, Herbert Marcus. He had gone out of his way to give his three brothers, who had served in thewar, a share of the limelight. Nevertheless, he had to establish his authority. Below, an excerpt fromhis 1974 memoir Minding the Store, in which he recalled how he did it.
The Editors
After the board meeting at which I was made president, I gathered my brothers together to reiteratethe need for continuing family solidarity and to caution us all that the test of this concept wasabout to begin. Heretofore, we had been held together by the colossal strength of a great man, ourfather, who was both the head of the family and the controlling stockholder of the company.
ÒÔNow,Õ I said, Ôwe stand as four brothers with equal shares in the company, with theoretically equalrights as stockholders. I have been named president and chief executive officer and I shall beforced at some time in the future to make decisions which may be contrary to the judgments of one orthe other of you. I shall attempt at all times to be fair and objective, but as long as I am thechief executive officer I shall expect you to accept my decisions, even when you may disagree.Õ Allthree of them recognized my seniority in both age and experience, and pledged their sincerecooperation without reservation.
ÒBeing the boss of three brothers with comparable financial stakes and a closeness in age is somewhatdifferent from being the stock-controlling boss of four sons. No one of us was a shrinking violet, andour egos frequently collided. My father could rule by dictate; I had to administer by persuasion.
The situation of four brothers, each separated from the other by only about four years in age,operating within the confines of four walls and under one roof, was not ideal for any of us; yet insome ways we succeeded remarkably well, for a time at least.
ÒAny successful retail business, in my opinion, must be the reflection of the aims and ideals of theexecutive director, who sets the basic policies for operation and who vigorously pursues the executionof them. This in no way implies that he does it alone, for he must have the collaboration of scores ofable associates, but it does mean that the business cannot function well under a committee management.There must be a head who makes some of the tough final decisions after having heard all the arguments,pro and con, and some of those decisions may prove to be unpopular and even wrong. Nevertheless, hehas to make them and make them decisively.
ÒMy brothers did not always agree, but they did accept my decisions in good spirit. One eventuallyleft the business for personal reasons and I resisted his subsequent attempts to return for businessreasons, which subjected me to a certain amount of public criticism. This is the type of hard decisionwhich a chief executive must be prepared to make; it is doubly hard when family considerations comeinto conflict with sound business judgment. The integrity of management is at stake whenever itdisplays favoritism to a member of the family, and for that reason I have always insisted thatmembers of the Marcus family conduct themselves in a manner as good as or better than other persons inour business. Nepotism is one of the most debilitating of all business diseases.Ó
From Minding the Store by Stanley Marcus. Copyright © 1974 by Stanley Marcus. By permission of LittleBrown and Co.