Pop Art: Lessons for business & life

6 minute read

I couldn’t possibly write a blog about my real estate education without special mention of my father, who was educating me before I even was aware of it. Michael Marx may already be known to some of my readers, given his position as CEO of a FTSE 250 UK commercial property developer for over twenty years, and CFO of a major multinational developer before that. Despite now being retired, he will always engage with me on a particular economic or real estate matter, and I will occasionally put upon him to introduce me to someone from his vast and envious black book of property professionals.

Below are some of my father’s pearls of wisdom that I strive to incorporate into my business life and elsewhere:

“You know you shook me, You shook me all night long”, Led Zeppelin

First impressions are important As a young boy my father drilled me in the art of the handshake. A firm handshake was of the utmost importance. To this day, if a stranger greets me with either a limp, uninterested handshake or a bone-crushing, dominating handshake, they have to work twice as hard to win me over during the rest of the meeting.

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever", Mahatma Gandhi

I would discuss each and every career move with my father. For the first twenty years or so of my career, the advice was always the same. Go where there are truly exceptional people, and learn as much as you can from them. Don’t worry about your salary in these formative years; you will reap the benefits when you’re ready.

No more Mr Nice Guy

A phrase I heard many times from my father and, indeed, from various line managers early on in my career was “You’re too nice. You need to toughen up a bit.” or words to that effect. And yet my father’s peers would frequently describe him to me as the nicest person in the industry. But there is a steeliness to him beneath the exterior that is necessary to be a success at the highest level.

This didn’t come naturally to me so I had to work hard at it. Not that long ago, a line manager told me that I was perhaps being a bit “too tough”. I took this as a sign of real progress, especially as I’m confident my peers would nonetheless still describe me as the (second) nicest person in the industry.

“The stock market is filled with individuals who know the price of everything, but the value of nothing", Phillip Fisher

“Take care of the business and the share price will take care of itself” my father would often say, whenever I pointed out that his company had taken a tumble in the markets.

This seems to be an amalgamation of various interrelated expressions: “Don’t sweat the small stuff”, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, “Choose your battles”, “Truth will out”, “Play the long game”, “Trust the process” etc. They all ring true with me, in some way or another.

“There did exist rumors of creatures in these woods”, The Village

Leverage is your friend, until it’s not. During financial crises it is invariably those investors with little or no leverage that outperform the rest. As was the case at the listed property developer which my father ran, which came through the Global Financial Crisis in a better shape than many of its peers. Knowing the attributes of leverage is not a particular advantage; however, recognising when it is going to hurt you is.

My father would occasionally refer to ‘creatures coming out the woods’. The emergence of certain market players - such as those offering cheap leverage at the very top of the market - was his soft signal that a correction was imminent.

I relate to this, albeit from the perspective of my own woods. My creature is ‘silly money’, namely the late-cycle investor naively going unaided (and frequently leveraged) into a new overseas market, buying from willing, more savvy local players.

Depending on your part of the woods, you will have identified your own particular creatures. It pays not to ignore them when they make an appearance.

Come on you Gunners!

It is not often that you walk into the office of one of the largest companies in the UK and see the reception walls adorned with football memorabilia or a personal collection of masterful tragicomic absurd art. Despite being a reserved man, my father isn’t averse to revealing elements of his personality to the world - even in a business setting.

I have made a mental note to do this when I one day have a say in how the office reception is decorated. In the meantime, I make do with drinking out of my Arsenal mug at the office. Whatever your football affiliation, it’s a welcome conversation starter by the coffee machine with colleagues and strangers alike.

“You can’t handle the truth”, A Few Good Men

“That’s your father? He’s my hero!” a colleague said to me once. It turns out that the reason behind his adulation was my father’s refreshing honesty in business.

Honesty and integrity are two of the attractions to me of my career. My research strives to be as independent and unbiased as possible, always supporting my colleagues but oftentimes holding them to account with my different perspective, whilst aiming to drive us forward together as a unit.

"Why so serious?", The Dark Knight

Early on in my career I had the fortune to attend a conference my father was chairing. “It’s nice to see so many old faces in the audience,” he opened, in front of a crowd of hundreds, “and some familiar ones as well”.

School teaches you that academic ability is important. Working life teaches you that other skills are just as crucial, if not more so; reliability, teamwork, punctuality, honesty, approachability, leadership, etc. But never do I see mention of a sense of humour, and yet mine has helped me time and time again. It can build friendships with colleagues, break the ice with clients, diffuse a tense moment, or - as in the example above - endear you to a room full of strangers at a conference.

I got my sense of humour from my father. No education was necessary; this one is buried deep in the Marx DNA.

“Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”, Thomas Edison

I missed something off the above list of life skills; hard work. “I’m not the most intelligent person in the room,” my father would tell me over and over again, “but I work harder than everyone else.”

I agree with the sentiment, and work as hard as my body and mind (and family) will allow. But I also disagree with certain aspects of this statement. I firmly believe that intelligence is not a fixed quota for life, and that hard work can expand this many times over. Our brains are elastic, our capacity for learning and improvement is limitless.

He is wrong. My father frequently is the most intelligent person in the room.

“It’s good to talk”, British Telecom

Not two years into my fledgling career, I had the dubious pleasure of presenting my research to a small consortium of clients, which happened to include my father. Following the presentation and discussion, one client expressed his desire that the research be embargoed from being made public for a year, so that his company could take advantage of its findings. “No,” replied my father firmly but politely, “This needs to get out there. Let’s start the debate.”

Some companies are overprotective of their intellectual capital, seeing it as their competitive advantage. Like my father, I believe different; sharing ideas at a high level promotes transparency, collaboration, trust, and is to everyone’s advantage in the long term. In many ways, this is behind the reason for my writing a blog in the first place.

There is a limit to sharing, though. The true business advantage comes not in the initial idea, but in its detail, implementation and evolution. And having the people on your side with the skills, experience and creativity to generate even more, better ideas off the back of them.