When the philosopher Bias was fleeing from his land, which had been captured by the enemy, and was advised to save some of his property, he replied: omnia mecum porto mea (All that is mine, I carry with me).
- Cicero
For years W. Michael Blumenthal has quietly evaluated some of the world's most powerful men by his own personal standard: Could they make it in Shanghai? By any standard, Blumenthal embodies the American dream of success. He began his career by earning two master's degrees and a doctorate at Princeton. He next combined a brilliant career in both business (vice president of Crown Cork International Corporation and president of Bendix Corporation) and government (chairman of the U. S. Delegation to the Kennedy Round of Trade Negotiations and Secretary of the Treasury). In what he calls his latest incarnation, Blumenthal is chairman and chief executive officer of Unisys Corporation. He created this $10 billion manufacturer of commercial information systems, defense systems, and related services by merging Sperry Corporation with Burroughs Corporation.
As with many American successes, Blumenthal's story begins in adversity. "I grew up as a Jew in Nazi Germany. I saw my father barely escape with his life from a concentration camp and then immigrated with my family to wartime Shanghai, China. In that environment I witnessed how people react when they are stripped of all of their possessions and thrust into a totally alien environment. And when I refer to stripping them of all their possessions, I mean not only physical possessions, but of their language because these were German-speaking people, who suddenly no longer found much use for their language, their skills. If you were a lawyer in Germany, it didn't do you much good in wartime Shanghai. If you were a doctor, you couldn't easily practice medicine. If you were a famous journalist whose name was a household word in Germany, it meant nothing in China, nobody knew who you were.
"And I have always thought, after observing how people react in this environment, both those who were rich and famous and those who were poor and uneducated, and observing sometimes that the latter adjusted much better than the former, that what counts in life is not who you are or where you come from but the inner resources that you bring to bear, first. And secondly, the trick is not how well you deal with success, but how well you deal with adversity.
"Time and time again in dealing with so-called important people in my life here in the United States and in my various professional experiences, I asked myself silently... 'How would you do in Shanghai, Mr. Ambassador, Mr. Senator, Mr. Chairman of the Board, in the same kind of situation that I saw people? How would you deal with a situation in which the fates conspired against you?' That was very helpful in telling me that it depends on me and on my inner resources."
- Frederick G. Harmon, The Executive Odyssey
