The Importance of Diving Deep, 80s DeVry Style

I’ve been tinkering on a non-fiction project of late that takes the useless knowledge I often peddle and combines it with a nugget that makes one think, maybe.

I read the book The Daily Drucker about fifteen years ago and dutifully turned the page each morning, all the while trying not to skip ahead. Mostly, I found myself getting behind due to travels and the toils of life. But now and then, I still stumble upon the author’s work in spirit. My favorite, Culture eats strategy for breakfast (Note, Drucker never actually said it). The C-Suite shouted it down from on high in the early 2000s. Recently, I heard it mentioned on a podcast in reference to billboards and T-shirts. There is money in branding.

But, if we’re getting cute with words, I have no idea what the saying means. Can culture eat anything? My dog eats kibble; sometimes vomits it up too. I know this is a metaphor, at least I think it is.

Maybe companies eat other companies for breakfast (though multi-million dollar mergers should be handled over lunch). We’ll extend that to the now quaint yet divisive at the time political statement from Mitt Romney: Corporations are people too.

I’m unsure where I’m going with this, but I believe how organizations structure themselves matters. A Vergecast podcast host asks this question to CEOs: Can I see your org chart?¹ It’s a great question, but companies change frequently. Leaders switch seats. Attrition happens. Succession keeps Human Resources up at night.

And reorganization often increases stock price.

So maybe the organizational structure alone doesn’t matter—at least, not by itself.

Let’s take this to the next level. Take an industry. Review its peers. And then find the one that does not belong. My favorite is insurance. If you rank the top property casualty companies in the US by market cap, you find the following: Berkshire Hathaway (Geico and others), Progressive, Travelers, Allstate, Hartford, and the list goes on.

Notice that arguably the largest isn’t on this list—State Farm Insurance. Well, it’s a mutual company. I’d argue that it thinks about the market from a different perspective. The business model has a certain tweak; money flows to the policyholders instead of the shareholders. But if you dig deeper, you might notice something else hiding in plain sight.

Location: Bloomington, IL. It’s a magical land, producing electric cars and chocolate these days too. And another large mutual company resides in the same town, Country Insurance. What’s in the water that sprouts mutual companies in Central Illinois? The origin story? The customer set? Shared values?

Drucker may be right. Culture does eat strategy for breakfast because it’s the organizational chart, location, customer set, and values all rolled into one. It’s the company… maybe.

Thinking about insurance then led me to the education market. And then, I remembered a team dinner in the ‘90s that influenced my career. The details are hazy, but the legends we create, the stories we tell matter—they really do.

What’s next is very much a work in progress, I don’t know if my Daily Drucker will make it off the cutting room floor. But here we go, for the paid clan only. Thanks for reading.

IBM Stories

I remember joining IBM in the late 90s. Time has a tendency to blur, stretch even. A part of me believes I worked there in the 80s but that’s just the nostalgia talking. I suppose that’s why my kid calls me ancient. Yet, I will forever remember a team dinner I’m fairly sure I never attended; still, to this day, people claim I was there.

Let’s set the stage.

Senior leaders plan a team event. I’ve attended hundreds of these—it’s just math, since, remember, I’m old. To further refine the memory, these are salespeople, out late, and are visiting Sweet Home Chicago. Yeah, they all went home early.

The key word here is all.

You could argue that salespeople aren’t much different than accountants. Most corporate-style dinners end in the same cliched way: we meet and greet, order, share tales of deals and best practices. Then, another round of drinks—the tab is open.

After an order of potato skins, the cheese and bacon bits stole the show, a certain sales rep turns to a topic of utmost life importance: college sports. SEC vs Big 12 vs Big 10. The rest? Is there a rest? Kidding.

I’m all game here for a little bashing of the SEC; I used to tell Alabama jokes in droves. Lately, I’m on the other side of that joke as the school with most National Merit Scholars isn’t Harvard. Or Yale. Yes, Alabama leads the way.

Nobody in the South cares about the Ivy League. Here students want a gathering place every Saturday, at least the option. And that is watching a dominant college football team with a chance to win the entire show. Yes, some Saturdays, I plan for Home Depot or far-away island trips. But I know when Tennessee plays Mizzou—it’s penciled in on the home calendar when the schedule is announced.

Then, another turn (after ordering more potato skins), what school has the best graduate programs?

And during this playful banter, amidst claims that Nebraska’s Herbie the Husker would beat Northwestern’s Willie the Wildcat in arm wrestling, a fateful statement blurts out: At least you didn’t go to DeVry…

The air is sucked out of the room. Someone spills their wine. Another drops the sour cream potato boat.

There isn’t laughter, only dull groans.

I’d like to say there is no joy in Mudville—Mighty Casey has struck out. But it’s worse, multiple senior managers graduated from DeVry. Oh, the horror.

Yeah, I’d say this violates one of Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power. Rule Number 1 is to never show up the boss, even unintentionally.²

But this is a mistake with a certain justification. Age matters. I remember the upstart university’s advertisements—the promise of a new learning model not funded by the government or leveraging non-profit status.

DeVry carved out a distinct—and controversial—niche focusing on speed, utility, and access. It was built to turn a profit. There were no ivy-covered walls, crumbling columns, or tenured faculty; the business model catered to anyone looking to leap into the job market fast. They had a sales pitch, Get a degree, find a job.

And it worked in the 80s golden age. This was the era of Tom Cruise’s Cocktail and Risky Business. And other business movies where anyone could rise to the executive ranks: Wall Street, 9 to 5, and Robocop (yes, this was a business movie and don’t tell me otherwise).

Change was afoot, and money was to be made. The US economy had shifted from manufacturing to service and technology, people needed skills fast to fit demand. Yet traditional institutions and community colleges were slow to adapt. DeVry filled the gap. While some talked theory, DeVry students learned COBOL, mainframe data systems, and early relational database concepts, typically part of broader programming and business systems coursework.

And if you’re at a dinner full of sales managers peddling database technology, chances are that more than one went to DeVry. Every single one knew their products inside and out. They were certified. Knew the features and functions. And could position strengths and weaknesses against other products in the market. Knowledge is power—they wielded it like Greek Gods.

In fairness to anyone who made college decisions years later, they wouldn’t know that because the DeVry operating model frayed. Tuition rose, student outcomes faltered, and job promises began to sound more like a bad sales pitch. Growth matters on Wall Street. But prospective students are more than a lead in a sales funnel. Lawsuits came later in that decade.

Here, in my story, we have the DeVry alumni and the more recent graduate, perhaps looking at the same school with two different perspectives. Depending on the era, the for-profit was the only game in town for certain programs. For the other, it was a school with mounting debt, falling behind to those playing the long game. ³

Education is hard. Culture and structure matters.

Yet everyone at that dinner, no matter their background, deserved to be in the arena. They had a job to do. We were all on the same team. More importantly, dig deep and understand your product market fit down to the command line. Learn and be curious. It’s important to the company. Above all, it’s important to clients. Everyone has problems to solve, and that elusive thing called value is driven by those who have a deep understanding of what they’re selling. Onward.

Footnotes