Product Description

The unique story of a business heretic and his concept of Economic Value Added (EVA)

In Against the Grain, Joel Stern shares for the first time, not only the story of how EVA swept the corporate world, but the story behind the story–the intellectual underpinnings of EVA, how he and his colleagues at Stern Stewart & Co. promoted the concept, won its initial acceptance by major corporations, and later turned the concept into a revolution. He has for good reason been called a one–man catalyst for change. In an engaging memoir, he has given us not only an account of his business strategy, but also provided fascinating anecdotes and vignettes of encounters with leading businessmen on four continents.

Joel M. Stern (New York, NY) has been the Managing Partner of Stern Stewart & Co. since its founding in 1982 and was coauthor of The EVA Challenge (Wiley: 0–471–40555–8). A recognized authority on financial economics, corporate performance measurement, corporate valuation, and incentive compensation, he is a leading advocate of the concept of shareholder value.
Irwin Ross (New York, NY) was retained to write The EVA Challenge with Joel Stern and John Shiely. He is a former roving editor of Reader′s Digest and over the years has written for Fortune and a variety of other magazines.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2378351 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Review
It seems like an easy option to read a business autobiography rather than a self–improving book on the workings of companies or markets.
The attraction is that it may be a more palatable way to pick up business tips, and has lengthy theories presented in potted form.
Both are true of Joel Stern′s memoir, Against the Grain: How to succeed in business by peddling heresy. The emphasis here is on peddling, and he is proud of it. "I dash about to sell ideas," he writes in a section on "serious" jet–setting. Not long before his 61st birthday he visited 12 cities, "some more than once", on four continents in 27 days.
Of course, the book also sells Stern Stewart & Co, the financial consulting firm he founded in 1982, which has developed and popularized the concept of EVA – economic value added – "the profit that results after deducting the cost of all capital invested in the firm".
Such peddling of his firm is sometimes irksome, but Stern Stewart′s theories on how to measure profit and wealth created for shareholders remain a healthy antidote to earnings per share. Simila rly, Stern′s skepticism about share options as a form of remuneration rings true – as well as providing the backdrop for his sales pitch on EVA–related incentives.
But the main interest of Stern himself lies in his unusual combination of academic, entrepreneur and salesman. Teaching has always been an important part of his career and, even if you disagree with him, he makes you think.
The academic side blossomed at the University of Chicago graduate business school. He was drawn there by Milton Friedman′s book Capitalism and Freedom, which prompted a Damascene conversion to free markets. There he lived through a revolution in financial theory led by the likes of Merton Miller, Nobel Prize winning economist.
Aware of his lack of economics training, he kept piping up with questions. Finally Miller snapped and suggested he visit the dean′s office: "There will be a derringer in the file for you. Please keep pulling the trigger until something exciting happens."
Stern stuck at the financial theory. And he did so on limited means, which prompted his first entrepreneurial burst. As an orthodox Jew, he could not eat in the student mess. His self–catering demanded a fridge, which he bought for Dollars 38 and then rented out to fellow students at Dollars 12 per half shelf per quarter, grossing Dollars 432 a year. "With that towering return on investment, I was convinced that the free enterprise system worked just fine."
He started work at Chase Manhattan Bank and joined the corporate financial research team, where he developed his disdain for conventional accounting and worked on free cash flow analysis. He railed against such gimmicks as "smoothing out" earnings, arguing that it was not so easy to fool the market.
When set loose on clients, he insisted a fee was charged for the analytical service. Giving it away would devalue it – a view that equity researchers in the 1990s would have done better to abide by.
Stern broke away, with some colleagues and backing from a client. Ron Palamara, of Anacomp, asked what the new business was worth. "Dollars 10m," Stern replied – it sounded like a "nice round number". Palamara bought a 50 per cent stake.
Bennett Stewart, another graduate of the University of Chicago, is the firm′s other leading light. Stern had recruited him to the Chase team via an interview that involved debating financial theory in a car wash.
Stern′s autobiography is short, with the story of the man and the firm taking up a mere 142 pages. The personal side includes his religious devotion and love affairs with South Africa, libertarian politics and a woman he bumped into on a flight to Phoenix. These leaven the mix, although the reader will occasionally ask himself how much he cares.
The final two sections of the book include a question and answer session on such topics as corporate greed and business ethics, and a selection of articles comprising useful short lectures on corporate finance and efficient market theory.
Stern describes himself as a missionary. The term is apt because he realizes that good ideas are worth nothing if they are not published and pushed. Like this zealous role model, he can be irritating – but he is, above all, stimulating. (Financial Times, November 13, 2003)

“…he is above all, stimulating…”(Financial Times, 13 November 2003)

Review
“…he is above all, stimulating…”(Financial Times, 13 November 2003)

From the Inside Flap
Success does not come easily in the world of business, especially if you choose to challenge some of the most widely held beliefs in modern finance. Nobody knows this better than Joel Stern–a man who swam against the strong current of conventional financial dogma and ended up revolutionizing the way CEOs and money managers value and measure performance. By maintaining a steadfast belief in his concept of Economic Value Added (EVA) and convincing individuals, institutions, and companies of its validity, Stern has become a catalyst for change in the world of finance. He has also become the man who made EVA the most insightful measure of today’s corporate performance.

In Against the Grain: How to Succeed in Business by Peddling Heresy, Stern shares for the first time, not only the story of how EVA swept the corporate world, but the story behind the story–the intellectual underpinnings of EVA, how he and his colleagues at Stern Stewart & Co. promoted the concept, won its initial acceptance by major corporations, and later turned the concept into a revolution that has continued to grip the worlds of business and finance.

But Against the Grain is about more than Joel Stern’s achievements in shaping economic thought and financial practices. This absorbing business memoir is about the life challenges of an incredibly driven individual. Through fascinating anecdotes and vignettes, you’ll get an up–close look at Joel Stern the person and the professional–from growing up in a middle–class Jewish family in New York City to attending graduate classes with Myron Scholes and learning from teachers such as Merton Miller and Milton Friedman. You’ll also see how dogged determination and an unwavering belief in his ideas led to the creation of Stern Stewart & Co.–a world–class consulting firm with offices on five continents.

It takes confidence and skill to buck the trend, and Joel Stern has a lot of both. In this unique story of a business heretic and his concept of EVA, you’ll find out what motivated Stern to proclaim "earnings per share don’t count" and how he went about proving it to the world.

Customer Reviews

Who Is Joel Stern? Fortune Has Smiled on Him
If you know who Joel Stern is, you may want to read this book. If you do not, you will probably not enjoy the book.

If you know and love Mr. Stern, the book will add many amusing anecdotes to your story of tales about this peripatetic self promoter.

Mr. Stern was originally known for visiting CEOs and telling them that "earnings per share don't count." That was a novel message to CEOs who usually got their bonuses for meeting budget targets for earnings. Intrigued by the comment, Mr. Stern would usually go on to explain that the stock market was highly efficient and followed the lead of "steers" like Warren Buffett who knew how to assess the economic effectiveness of an organization's performance. The book contains a copy of an early op-ed piece he wrote to explain his ideas.

What Mr. Stern wanted people to do was to focus on making the cash flow of their organizations that they did not have to reinvest grow ("free cash flow"). Turned into English, he wanted companies to make more money with their investments and invest as little as possible. He now characterizes that concept as "heresy." That's strange since businesses have been employing discounted cash flow as a discipline to making new investments since around 1890.

Since then, Mr. Stern has worked with his colleagues at Stern Stewart (his financial consulting firm) to turn these concepts into elaborate measures of economic performance called EVA and MVA that adjust for the cost of capital (something that has been around since the Capital Asset Pricing Model was introduced many decades ago). Mr. Stern also thinks of this as "heresy."

Few others than CEOs would have heard of Mr. Stern if he didn't constantly teach, speak and write about his work. The book has some elements of Adventure Capitalist as he describes his nomadic life.

His main prominence occurred after 1993 when Fortune Magazine made him the feature of a cover story. Why did Fortune do that? The book doesn't tell, but I once asked a friend who is an editor there. Stern Stewart was a tiny firm at the time, and barely breaking even (as Mr. Stern acknowledges in this book). The ideas were ones that had been around in academia for decades. What was so special? The editor told me that Roberto Goizueta, then chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola, had written to suggest the idea. Since Fortune had never received a letter like that from a CEO, they felt that they had to write the article. The Wall Street Journal later reported that Mr. Goizueta typically spent more than half his day writing letters to analysts and publications to get more exposure for his company's stock. Since then, Mr. Stern's firm continues to be published annually in Fortune, and prominent Fortune editors appear at his marketing conferences.

In that story, you get the essence of the book. Mr. Stern is a genius at persuading high profile people to endorse him and his work and help promote his career. This began while he was at Chase Manhattan Bank. I first met him in 1975 after the lending officer to our Fortune 200 company suggested we hire Mr. Stern to come speak to us. At the end of the presentation after Mr. Stern left, his internal sponsor in our company noted that Chase Manhattan did not use his concepts.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Stern eventually left Chase to start his own firm in 1982. Since then, his contribution has been to take the two groups of executives in our society who read the least (CEOs and CFOs) and teach them about the financial theory that is taught in every business school in the world. Before you dismiss that contribution, remember Peter Drucker's advice: There is no single measure of company performance that is any good. You should add more and use them all. In that vein, Mr. Stern has helped. He now has many competitors who provide reasonably similar versions of the same measurements.

If you want to know more about these measures, read The Quest for Value by Bennett Stewart rather than this book.

The most controversial part of his work is a compensation method based on EVA. I was amused to find out from this book that Stern Stewart does not use this method for its own compensation, although EVA is one part of the compensation determination.

If you are interested in how to be a high-profile consultant in the world of finance, you will get a good sense of the type of networking among academia, finance and senior executives that is required. If you want to live that nomadic life, cut off from your family, then the world is yours.