The Pachyderm Post

Over ten years ago, before I re-entered corporate management for awhile, I spent years developing and delivering management and executive development programs for IBM in La Hulpe, Belgium.

At the time, I was also working with the company at their management development facilities in Armonk, New York and The Palisades , in New Jersey. I even hosted the entire Palisades management team for three days of strategy development and team-building in Nantucket, Mass.

But I have the fondest memories of La Hulpe, which was the headquarters for management and executive development for IBM in Europe, the Middle East and Africa at that time.

I’d actually attended executive development programs myself at this location, when I was an IBM Director of Marketing and Services and Director of Consulting Services.

The times that I spent developing and delivering personal and professional development programs in that environment were among the most rewarding of my professional life.

This was certainly so because those were times of great turmoil and ferment at IBM.

But it was more so because of the incredible opportunity to work with people of such different cultures and backgounds.

Developing and delivering programs for such an international audience tapped my knowledge of international relations, politics and cultures in ways that simply weren’t required in the U.S. alone.

Since so much of what I did was grounded in the professional and social realities of the participants, it was incredibly exciting to connect with Germans or French or Saudis on terms with which they were already familiar, and with references which already meant something to them.

So, it was sad for me to learn, in 1993, that IBM was dissolving their training and development operation in La Hulpe.

But I was thrilled to discover, over a year ago, that an American company – Dolce International – had acquired La Hulpe (as well as the other properties that I have mentioned) and planned to reopen it as a hotel, resort and conference center.

They are in fact reopening just this month.

It is an incredibly beautiful place now, particularly in comparison to the austere IBM esthetic of yore.

Apparently, they will offer first class hotel and resort services as well as conference and executive development programs, for which there is a keen need these days…more than ever.

I can’t wait to see how they do.

I wish them luck.

For the sake of the future of personal and professional development in Europe.

And for the sake of my memories…

VMB

I hardly remember my first day as a new manager at IBM in the fall of 1981.

In fact, the only event that I do clearly remember about that day started with being told by my secretary (remember secretaries?) that there was “a crazy man” on the phone who absolutely needed to talk to me “right now!”

I was in the middle of a tornado of new people, new responsibilities, a completely new environment, and a flurry of requests for my time…all of which needed to be attended to “right now!”

But something told me to take that crazy man’s call.

It was Sam Albert, IBM’s Director of Consulting Relations (if I remember the title correctly).

He might better have been titled “Tornado in Chief.”

In a torrent of words, made bearable only because I only picked up only half of them, he blasted me with the absolute urgent, “right now” need to invite a key customer of mine to a meeting that Sam was hosting that very week in White Plains, NY.

The fact that I had not yet even called to introduce myself to the new customer was only an incidental impediment for Sam, who had known the man for years.

Sam thoughtfully suggested introducing me to the new customer himself.

I demurred, thinking that this was a privilege best reserved for my new boss, the Branch Manager of Boston Public Sector and Commercial, Gale Fitzgerald. She and I were arranging schedules just that day.

She was new too, having just replaced John Thompson (now of Symantec fame…see earlier post), who had actually hired me into the branch.

In the midst of Sam’s word-torrent, it oddly occurred to me that, despite his actually incredible demands and expectations of me, I wasn’t irritated or upset in any way.

The man’s sincerity and passion for his objective was in no way disrespectful or anything but…sincere and passionate.

And I was deeply impressed that he – who’d known my customer for years, and could have called him directly – respected my role in building the customer relationship.

Before I knew it, I was juking and jabbing, trying to get a word in edgewise.

Not to put him off…his mission had now become mine, though I was only then beginning to understand its importance.

No, I was trying my rookie best to impress this “crazy guy” with my appreciation of the urgency of “our” effort to get this customer to Sam’s meeting.

All of this taking place in the span of about 60 seconds.

As Bogart said to Claude Rains in Casablanca: “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

It was…and still is…

Sam was a friend, a mentor, and an all-round bon vivant, in the best possible sense of that over-used and so often wrongly used French phrase.

Sam truly did love life and living, and I do more because of knowing him.

Years later, when we’d both left IBM, and were independent consultants, Sam gave me a Yo-Yo (he was Yo-Yo champion at American University).

That Yo-Yo has always reminded me that life is up and down, but it can always be fun…always.

Sam died four years ago today.

Thanks, Sam, for showing us how to live.

vb