Steve and I first met over 50 years ago in 1967 when I applied for a faculty position in the small management department in the then-Department of Business at the University of Maryland. There was no official College of Business with separate departments until 1973 when Rudy Lamone bercame the first Dean. Salaries were low and there was some misunderstanding of the role of the modern business school among non-business faculty. For example, at the first faculty meeting of the Faculty of Behavioral and Social Science, in which we were only one small department among much larger departments, non-business faculty actually questioned whether a business school was appropriate in a university setting. Largely because of the tireless efforts of Steve, Allan Nash, and Frank Paine in the area of hiring the best faculty and supporting them in whatever way they could, the foundation for the Smith School of Business was put into place. As more than one colleague at competitive universities remarked in surprise when they learned we had eight or fewer faculty, including three outstanding female professors, when they estimated we had 40 or 50 full-time faculty, we had a management department with no weak links among the faculty. This was unique at the time. The management department at Maryland was the first to mature, followed by management science and statistics. Over time all departments at Maryland grew in stature.
This was the context for the next ten years: A highly supportive Dean, low salaries, some hostility from traditional departments, and the use of a the business school as a cash cow. We faced many problems and difficulties, but Steve always made the greatest exertions to emphasize what so many others writing on this website openly recognized about Steve: His generosity, scholarship, etc.
After retirement, as we know, he suffered physically. Still, he kept in contact via e-mail and, when possible, his presence. He let me know that another old friend and colleague, Lee Preston, was on his deathbed and could not speak. Fortunately he could hear and I sent an e-mail that his wife Pat read to him. Similarly he informed me that Marv Levine was in the final stages and the last time I saw both Marv and Steve was when we and our wives had lunch at the Levine home. By then he had lost 25 or 30 pounds. Recently I was on a six-month assignment in Europe when Patrick Flood e-mailed that Steve was in hospice. I immediately called and tallked with both Donna and Steve and promised to call after Feb. 1 when back in the U.S. Unfortunately time ran out for a second call.
All of us have strengths and weaknesses. In Steve's case the so-called weaknesses were charming. For someone in HRM, he had difficulty conveying negative feedback with specific steps to improve. Sometimes his criticisms sounded like praise and more than one student had difficulty interpreting his mixed messages. On the first written exam that a doctoral student at Maryland wrote that I graded, another professor and I failed the student on nine of ten questions. Steve, although he agreed with us, vacillated. The student passed this exam with a high pass a year later and went on to write several articles with Steve, thus ensuring his promotion at a prominent university. Several years later, this student joked that he kept a picture of me in his office to motivate him. I hope he did not use it for dart practice!
Perhaps the best example of Steve's difficulty in conveying negative information occured after I was promoted to professor and then was a member of the tenure and promotion committee at the divisional level; at the time Maryland had five divisions, each with a provost. It was an eye-opener. As one young Associate Professor once told me, she always thought that faculty were very nice until she sat on a comparable committee; then she realized we were a combination of Dr.Jekell and Hyde. At any rate, we had an Assistant Professor who was clueless, with good reason, as she was winning teaching awards but publishing in low-level journals that would not pass muster at Maryland. I enlisted Steve to join the candidate and me at a meeting to convey this information and to indicate a possible path to success, even though the tenure clock was running short. We met in Steve's office in a meeting at which he barely spoke. The candidate was resistant to the negative information and plan of action. Then she started crying! I was ill-prepared for this, as 95% of all professors at the time were male. What does Steve do? He jumps up and says he has to teach, thus leaving me with a bad situation. Needless to say, we had words about this matter for at least five years, with Steve claiming that I was rough around the edges and needed to be more gentle in my feedback, with me claiming that it was critical to provide negative feedback with specific steps leading to success. About five years later I was at a conference at which this ex-Maryland professor informed me that that she was recently promoted to professor at a good university and thanked me, claiming that I was the only honest person in terms of feedback. I immediately told Steve, who still claimed I was rough around the edges,but the barrage of criticisms stopped.
For about 25 years we had adjacent offices. A student would come to my office and I would give such sage advice that it was time to get to work. This took about five minutes. Then the student would disappear into Steve's office for hours at a time. I asked Steve why he devoted so much time to counseling these students. He replied that he was cursed by taking a year-long course in sensitivity training as an undergraduate, which is a structureless form of management training with no one, including the professor, saying anything for several hours and even days. At the time UCLA was well-known for this form of training and Steve was a student in a class taught by a leader of this form of education. If you have ever participated in this form of training or witnessed it, you know why Steve felt cursed!
As so many have commented, Steve was unfailingly generous with his time and help. He was responsible for suggesting a unique methodology that led to the publication of my first major article, namely that job candidates recruited through informat means (e.g., knowing something about the company, personal referrals, reemployment, etc.) tend to stay much longer with an organization than those referred through formal sources such as hiring agencies or newspaper ads. All key relationships held at the .001 level. The editor accepted the article subject to one condition, or otherwise he would not accept it. The condition? I was not allowed to say there was no research on the topic, but had to add the word published research. Sadly, this experience distorted my perception of how difficult subsequent publications would become as I faced typically three 20-page reviews, each single-spaced.
In one conversation, I told Steve about an oral presentation on my dissertation at which a well-known professor began his feedback with: "This dissertation proposal reminds me of the story of the stinking fish in the Dead Sea." Since Steve and I were both Irish-American, he decided to top my story with one of his one. Specifically, he devoted four years to his dissertation and produced a first-rate work as judged universally except by one member of his dissertation committee, who threw his dissertation on the table at the start of the defense and said: "This is the worst piece of junk I have ever read." I asked him how he responded. Steve didn't believe him until the final vote: 4 to 1. As he recalled, he was shaking when he went back to his apartment and had a stiff drink or two to calm down.
Steve and I were members of an informal group that met over lunch two or three times a week for well over ten years at the cafeteria at University College. Ordinarily the lunch lasted one hour but somertimes we went on for two our three hours. We talked about everything: The state of the world, opera, sports, sudents, etc. One day a colleague who ordinarily had a sandwich at his desk indicated that he was going to join us in the future. I told Steve, and his response was: "What a pity. He's missed out on 20 years of great conversation."
We finally co-authored a book together. As usual, we had strong and different opinions on the style to be used, etc. His approach to research and writing was reflected in his much-noticed desk: He wanted to include everything. I on the other hand prefer to follow the dictates of Occam's Razor. We were going to meet in five minutes and I asked him whether we should meet in his or my office. Neither. We used the neutral conference room. His chapter on Japan ahd the problems of not separating work from family activities is still worth reading.
Steve was the master of the gentle putdown. He knew I had eight years of Jesuit education. One time we were having a faculty meeting at which we were debating something important such as the introduction of a new course. We were on different sides of the debate, and finally he said:
"Marty, you think like a Jesuit, you argue like a Jesuit, and you even look like a Jesuit. But you will never be a Jesuit. You like the women too much."
After the peels of laughter subsided, what could I say? He had blind-sided me!
These examples are illustrative of the Steve I knew. We all had great times together, and I will miss Steve in the future. He was a wonderful human being, a terrific scholar, a great friend, and unfailingly generous.Steve loved university life but also life outside the university, especially his family. I know that I will miss communicating with him and being influenced by his love of family and life.
Marty Gannon
