Age of the Memo to the Boss?

The memo-to-the-boss format is as old as the existence of bosses themselves, and so Jack Flack claims no originality using the device in his ongoing series of Rescue Memos, which provide unsolicited advice to spin-troubled CEOs.

But in the past few days, two of business journalism's sharpest columnists have also put the format to work. On Thursday, BW's Jon Fine offered some helpful hints to Sam Zell, and two days later the NYT's Joe Nocera wrote to Howard Schultz.

Both pieces are smartly written, but Jack Flack preferred Fine's, mainly because it actually provided advice to Zell in how to move forward with his newly acquired Chicago Tribune. That counsel was not only pointed, but largely useful.

For instance:

DON'T FALL FOR THE MIRAGE OF SYNERGY. TV and newspapers have never played well together. It's silly to think they might now. Oh, sure, throw some TV video up on a newspaper's Web site, and some newspaper stories up on a station's site. But that's kid stuff, and about all that will work. Print and TV are different products. Treat them as such.

Nocera, on the other hand, used his memo to spank Schultz for past behavior and confirm doom on the company's future, not unworthy tasks, given Starbucks' current difficulties.

Consider:

What was particularly discouraging was hearing you tell investors to look to the international markets, where Starbucks has "only" 5,000 stores, for accelerated growth. That suggests to me that you still don't get it. You can't fix a car going 60 miles an hour. If you are going to fix what ails Starbucks you have to forget about growth. And you have to stop thinking of your company as a sexy growth company. Those days are over.

The no-longer-a-growth-company notion is quite correct. But stopping the car is never an option at publicly held companies, and thus Schultz must find a way to move to the new model while also stabilizing the stock.

Jack Flack is not a real journalist, and consequently he's allowed to empathize in his memos. He's also not quite sure that Starbucks is as broken as some believe. And so look soon for a memo to Howie that does indeed try to rescue.