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From a distance.
On June 28th - last Wednesday - at his home in Belmont, Massachusetts, the venerable Theodore Levitt passed away at 81 years of age after a long illness. In my book Theodore Levitt was the greatest among many great marketers writing and thinking during the last century. His articles, four of which won the prestigious McKinsey Award for best annual article in the Harvard Business Review, never failed to leave me better prepared to do the work I do. I savored every word.
I never was privileged to personally know Professor Levitt, but I feel his passing as if I did know him. He opened more windows for me, turned on more lights for me, influenced me, and guided me as if he were my mentor and friend. Such was the power of his writing and the clarity of his insights about marketing.
Through Levitt I learned that marketing is more than delivering profits by putting the right products in the hands of the right people. I learned that strategy begins by how we think about what we do or what we make, not with the services or products themselves. As simple as it seems, learning concepts like the fact that people buy holes, not drills changed how I think about almost everything.
Levitt was a master at constructing mental models, one of Peter Senghe's five disciplines. Levitt's models were never just interesting, they were also always useful. I wonder how many breakthroughs Levitt helped create from a distance through his work.
One of my core beliefs is that we are all connected. As a result, we have enormous power to affect change and make a difference in the lives of others. Theodore Levitt was and will remain a giant among business thinkers - especially marketers - because he contributed so generously to people like me - people he never knew, but might only have imagined.
I am enormously grateful to Harvard University and to Harvard Business Review for delivering Professor Levitt's philosophy and strategy thinking to me.
Thank you.
Posted on July 4, 2006 10:22 AM | Permalink
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