HBR: When Everything Isn't Half Enough (fw)

[Bala Pillai <bala@malaysia.net>]

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
MARCH-APRIL 2000
HBR CASE STUDY

**When Everything Isn’t Half Enough**
Suzy Wetlaufer

Reprint R00211

Norman Spencer, who grew up poor, worked for two decades to make his
investment firm successful and his family wealthy. The company he
founded, Arrowhead, is now known on Wall Street as a top-notch boutique
firm with $25 billion in assets under management. His family has a
mansion in San Francisco and a “cottage” in Nantucket. His 17-year-old
daughter drives a BMW, his 13-year-old son takes flying lessons in his
own plane, and his wife has a personal feng shui adviser.

But at the pinnacle of his career, Norman feels as though he’s drowning.
Norman’s success only makes him feel numb, and his home life is a
disaster. His wife is so resentful of his lack of family involvement
that she no longer speaks to him. His daughter refused to wish him happy
Father’s Day. “You’re not a father,” she said.

Alternately harsh and remote at work, this fictional entrepreneur has
been asked by one senior executive at Arrowhead to stay away from the
analysts. So he spends a lot of time surfing the Internet, looking at
real estate in far-flung places, and haunting Web sites about missing
persons, wondering what became of his younger sister, who ran away from
home at age 14.

What is wrong with Norman, and how can he fix it? Advice on Norman’s
crisis comes from four experts, including an executive whose own
hard-driving career came to an abrupt halt 12 years ago when his son
committed suicide.