WOW.
Devil's Advocate | 05.21.07 - 11:33 pm | #

Fascinating comparison, Adv. Mil. I had read Arroyo's book (an outstanding biography of Mother Angelica!) but had forgotten about Harry John.

Mother Angelica's caution about giving control of her endeavor to Harry John also extended to great concern about giving control to the Catholic Church or the bishops. In the book, there is a thrilling story about the American bishops trying to take over EWTN after Mother had made it successful (which Mother would not stand for, because she knew EWTN's orthodoxy would be threatened with the bishops in control). If I remember the story correctly, the bishops attempted to gain control of EWTN through Mother: as a religious community in a diocese, Mother and her order were subject to the bishop, and thus, EWTN may have been subject to the bishop. Mother anticipated the bishops' checkmate and preemptively called an unscheduled emergency EWTN board meeting where she (and her loyal laypeople) passed a new set of bylaws giving all control of the board to lay people and not to any religious or diocesan members, and then Mother immediately resigned from the board, cutting off the conduit between EWTN and the religious community through which the bishops were trying to gain control. A great story of political and church intrigue.
Thales | 05.21.07 - 11:55 pm | #

Many of you will know that THE business book of the decade is the book FROM GOOD TO GREAT.

Here is a summary of the core discoveries of this important work:

http://www.fastcompany.com/ onlin...oodtogreat.html

http://www.jimcollins.com/lib/ di...discussion.html

The reason why this book is so important (to us) is because of the natural law principles that are reflected in the findings.

One of the most counter intuitive discoveries comes under the two topics:

"Level 5 Leadership", and "First Who, Then What"

What they discovered is that greatness does not stem from the high profile "rev 'em up" visionary leader, but involves a leader who is profoundly humble who also has a conquering will.

Vision is important, BUT, it isn't the leader who brings the vision and sets the course. The truely great companies build a truely great team, with the right people in the right positions, and then let them decide the vision, direction, method, etc.

Why is this important?

Because AMSoL started with the makings of a Great law school. It was the TEAM of Founding Faculty who together created the vision and the direction of the law school. But they made a mistake with TSM - they put him in the position of capital finance and Chairman of the BoG. This was critical mistake.

TSM's does not have a Good to Great management model. He has a 1950's "hub and spoke" model of command and control implemented by "yes men."

This is why they are so dependent on consultants to come along to tell them they should be marketing on the "Internets." That insight would have been taken for granted by a Good to Great team at AMU.

TSM and Harry John demonstrate (in the negative) the truth of the natural principles that appear in great organizations.
Columcille | 05.22.07 - 8:41 am | #

Harry John was not the only one to sink tens of millions of dollars into trying to develop a Catholic television network. He tried to imitate the then three national networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) by establishing a chain of local television stations, but the only channels that he could get were those in the then lesser-viewed VHS band (channels 14-86). He was also imitating what Pat Robertson was then doing for CBN, but Pat decided to drop that very expensive way by selling his local television stations (and at a good profit) and instead going the much less expensive way of satellite-to-local-cable (the method selected by Mother Angelica for her EWTN).

The American Catholic bishops also sank tens of millions into their Catholic Television Network not by establishing a chain of local television stations, although a few dioceses had VHS channels for local programming especially for the local catholic school system--in imitation of the then "educational" (now Public Broadcasting System) channels. Instead the bishops decided for the worst of both the network and cable appraches (or a bad combination of both) by establishing a separate system of satellite dishes (the then big models) in each diocese (outside the regular local cable systems) to receive broadcasts from the national system and possibly add some local diocesan programs and then offer them to local cable systems.

Mother Angelica started EWTN broascating out of a former garage to satellite and letting local cable systems pick it up and their own option. Many did, because by then federal regulation they had to provide some sort of public-service broadcasting. Also, she worked on a shoe-string budget, depending on month-to-month donations , which she begged on-air.
Little Tom | 05.22.07 - 9:51 am | #

Another fascinating fact De Rance Foundation is that Joe Fessio right there, helping to squander the millionaire's money.

The litany of Monaghan's entreprenuerial failures was "National Catholic Radio," which was heralded upon its inauguration on the front page of the NY Times. There were rumors that it was losing HUGE amounts of money, in the tens of millions.
Ave Maria veteran | 05.22.07 - 9:59 am | #

Unlike Big Tom's sole proprietarship, Harry John's DeRance Foundation was governed by a board consisting of himself, his wife, and a long-time friend. It seemed like an ideal arrangement, because all decisions were unanimous until he began dipping into the principle of the foundation's assets to support his television network (as well as the other strange things that he was doing--as mentioned in an above puff). Then his wife and friend voted against his actions, leading to the start of a long legal feud and suspension of all Foundation activity. That led to the demise of the first "new" Catholic colleges--namely, Cardinal Newman College, founded in Missouri and funded by DeRance money.
Little Tom | 05.22.07 - 10:00 am | #

Little Tom,

Do you have more history and information about Cardinal Newman College? The little Google research I did only came up with the fact that the college closed in January 1985. What is its story?
Thales | 05.22.07 - 10:56 am | #

There's no wikipedia on Cardinal Newman College, though there's one on Harry John:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_John

From the wikipedia article, in 1984, John's wife Erica and Donald Gallagher, the other two directors of the De Rance Foundation "became alarmed at Harry John's increasingly extravagant expenditure of De Rance assets on such things as entire television stations (for which John envisioned a 24-hour-a-day Catholic broadcast network), treasure hunts for sunken ships, and risky investments in gold futures and junk bonds. Mrs. John and Gallagher filed a lawsuit along with attorney Tom Cannon in Milwaukee County Circuit Court to have Harry John removed as a De Rance director. After a five-month trial, on August 21, 1986, Judge Michael Barron announced that the plaintiffs had proven their allegations. Harry John was permanently removed from the De Rance board; he divorced Erica, and moved to California where he resided for the next six years, returning to Milwaukee in 1992."

I wonder whether the events in 1984 were the cause of the school going under in January 1985.
Thales | 05.22.07 - 11:05 am | #

One thing we have to admit is that Monaghan can dress a little better than John.

And he likes to tell others how to dress, too. I hope all the ladies reading this are in skirts, below the knee, nylons, and modest blouses.
Ryder | 05.22.07 - 11:28 am | #

Weird. The parallels are striking, although I would note one difference. John at least had one thing going for him that Monaghan didn't have. According to the Wikipedia entry, he refused recognition for his contributions and preferred to operate in the shadows. I don't know if that remained true when the spending became truly extravagent. My guess is that he, too, began to like the attention.

It is truly a shame to see so much being squandered on so little.
albert anon | 05.22.07 - 2:01 pm | #

He should have reinvested the money in beer R & D.
Meg Roper | 05.22.07 - 10:48 pm | #

I don't know Meg, Miller still beats Guinness, though that's not saying much.

As far as Tom dressing better than Harry, that's probably true, but his pants are still too short, he doesn't like pant cuffs (though that's actually coming back in style), and he's got a horrible tradition of lining the inside of his suits in obnoxious green - an Irish thing, I imagine. For $2000, I could do a lot better.
thelawdog | 05.23.07 - 5:29 pm | #

online pharmacy medicine online pharmacy medicine online pharmacy medicine. casino download free online casino download free online casino download free online.
yfegqlzhx | Homepage | 08.29.07 - 11:19 am | #