Thursday, May 15, 2003


NYT publisher Arthur Sulzberger's moose, explained: "Mr. Sulzberger instilled a management-guru-influenced corporate culture evident in off-site meetings that made some attendees from the news side cringe. He asked executives to read books such as 'The Leadership Moment,' a series of stories about life-changing incidents. Chief Executive Russell T. Lewis roller-bladed into one meeting to show how the Times was speeding up decision making. Executives sometimes award each other a small beanbag moose to recognize particularly probing questions, a reference to a fable in which a moose is asked to dinner and no one questions why. 'My father and his generation were defined by the Great Depression and World War II, and it created a very strong command-and-control culture,' says Mr. Sulzberger. 'My generation is defined more by revolutions...We deal with the moose.' One moose sits on his office computer, another on a TV set."