56 THE INVESTOR
One portfolio manager in Virginia may have put it best. When
I asked him what conditions allowed him to produce his most
creative work, he said, “When the boss is out of town.” It wasn’t
because he hated his boss—quite the contrary. He liked him. But
there was still a different feeling when the boss was gone.
This problem becomes more serious when the lion bosses are
under stress. (And who isn’t these days?) Myers-Briggs expert Otto
Krueger writes, “Striving for efficiency, STJs may produce a work
force full of hostility, stress, and absenteeism” (Krueger and
Thuesen, Type Talk at Work, Tilden Press 1992).
Under stress, we all tend to rely on our tried-and-true, tested
strengths. For lions, that means more efficiency and more preci-
sion. Do it harder, do it faster. Although this strategy may improve
certain aspects of married life, in the work environment it only
creates more stress. Which in turn usually results in poorer quality
work, poorer results, more stress, and a downward spiral.
But is it really necessary to have all this creativity in the invest-
ment field? Isn’t the investment world filled with three-piece suits
and conservative viewpoints? Where is the evidence that change is
needed?
Well, there is no question that it is more difficult to beat the
market today. In the 1980s, the rule-of-thumb number was that
about a third of professional managers beat the market. In the
1990s, that number dropped to 20 percent, and then down to
less than 10 percent. Why is the market getting progressively harder
to beat?
One answer is that the market represents the collective wisdom
of the investment community, including their tools and informa-
tion. As investors have become more knowledgeable and better
informed, all the while using more powerful tools, the bar has been
raised. The importance of higher-quality thinking becomes obvi-
ous in this scenario.
But what kind of thinking?
When I started in the investment business in 1979, my first07 ware 56 1/19/01, 1:09 PM