The Voice of Experience

Investment advice aside, I'm a big believer that those who do good do well -- in any economy. Simply put, the storekeeper who offers low prices and top quality will draw more customers and beat his competitors. The employer who focuses on giving employees better opportunities and benefits will attract and retain talent. If you're genuinely enthusiastic about helping people, you'll rise above these difficult times -- and be better off for it.

Sir John Marks Templeton (ftbmw@batelnet.bs) founded some of the world's largest and most successful investment funds, including the Templeton Growth Fund, which averaged 15.2% a year during its 45-year history, exceeding all other mutual funds during that time. In 1992, the Wall Street legend sold his funds and founded the John Templeton Foundation, which finances more than 150 projects worldwide that encourage progress in religious and spiritual knowledge. He is the author of 17 books, including his most recent, Story of a Clam: A Fable of Disenchantment and Enlightenment (Templeton Foundation Press, April 2001).

Warren Bennis

Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Founding chairman of the Leadership Institute
Marshall School of Business
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California

I've been alive for 76 years, and I think this is a damn good time to be on this earth. The Internet Age has presented us with a marvelous opportunity: We're all starting out fresh, having to learn the ropes together. What we're seeing now are little setbacks. And if there's one thing that the older generation understands well, it's that there are things called "cycles." And cycles teach you patience.

I don't want to make it sound easy, because it can be heartbreaking to have to fire people when it's time to tighten the belt. Nevertheless, running a business in a bumpy economy is as terrific an education as a young person can get. It's not unlike being in a platoon of infantrymen and getting sent to the front lines, as I was at age 19. The stakes are different, of course. But what the experience teaches you is similar: You learn quickly to make courageous choices.

If you're a leader, probably the biggest mistake you can make during any kind of downturn is to choke up. Remember the Flying Wallendas? When Karl, the patriarch of the Wallenda family, was in his seventies, he fell 120 feet to his death while trying to walk a tightwire between two office buildings in Puerto Rico. Later, his wife said that before the stunt, for the first time in his life, Karl had seemed concerned about falling. When it came time to perform, he fell because he was so focused on not falling, rather than on getting to the other side.

In tough times, remember Karl Wallenda. When you concentrate on not losing, rather than on winning, you'll find yourself dead on the ground.

Leadership guru Warren Bennis (warren.bennis@marshall.usc.edu) is the author of numerous books, including Managing the Dream: Reflections on Leadership and Change (Perseus, 2000) and On Becoming a Leader (Addison-Wesley, 1989). He is now at work on Geeks and Geezers: Partnering Across Generations with coauthor Bob Thomas. It's due out from Harvard Business School Press in 2002.

William F. Miller

Herbert Hoover Professor Emeritus of Public and Private Management
Stanford Graduate School of Business
Professor emeritus of computer science
Stanford University School of Engineering
Palo Alto, California

When the economy slows down, put your resources where you are strongest. It's tempting to do the opposite -- to try and shore up your vulnerable spots. But unless those vulnerable niche activities are extremely large and have great potential, you'll just be throwing good money after bad.

For example, as president of SRI International during the strained economy of the late 1980s, I eliminated areas where we weren't as competitive so that we could focus on what we did best. As provost at Stanford, I had to shut down entire departments where we simply weren't the best.

Those kinds of decisions aren't easy to make. But when times are hard, you need the courage to make choices in a thoughtful and purposeful manner. The last thing you should do is panic. When you panic, your brain shuts down; you stop listening and learning.

Fortunately, I believe that what we're going through now is a simple slowdown -- not a long bust. The bubble has been slightly deflated, but it didn't burst. We have a huge amount of momentum going: global business being conducted on the Internet, a new wave of wireless and nanotechnologies that are on the brink of maturity. The pace of the economy might slow down a bit, but that momentum will continue to encourage growth.

William F. Miller (wmiller@leland.stanford.edu) is chairman of Borland Software Corp. and of Sentius Corp., and is president and CEO emeritus of SRIInternational. As Stanford's vice president of research -- and later, as vice president and provost -- Miller championed the establishment of the Office of Technology Licensing. In February, he was inducted into the Silicon Valley Hall of Fame.