A balance of ends and means

John L. Cooper

As President of the Andover Board of Trustees, Don flourished especially in the after-dinner gatherings in his suite at the Andover Inn where, with a glass in hand, he could corner those with a special interest in a given subject and work out a plan for putting across the proper program. He was most in his element when he could talk confidentially to the key people involved in any decision. What he liked was to get things completed once it became clear that a consensus with a reasonable majority of support has been attained. He liked the decisions to be reached first, if possible, by those members of the board who had the most reason to be interested and informed on the subject at hand. Ted Sizer described this best as, “his nicely balanced mixture of well-defined ends and carefully crafted means.” His method of operation worked well, except for the occasional frustrations of those board members who had not been present in the Inn and who arrived at the meeting the following morning to find a fait accompli in an area where they were prepared to launch a learned discourse.

In private conversations our female colleagues were "dollies" to Don. This was just an easy, short form way of referring to ladies, all of whom he liked. Anyone who was misinformed on a subject, especially those who did not share McLean's opinion, was "out to lunch on this one." On one occasion when the merger of Phillips Academy and Abbott Academy was being implemented, one or two "dollies" with intense feelings got into the subject of female representation on the Board of Phillips Academy. They took an extended lunch break on this one, with our President as the focus of their fears about future board discrimination against the Abbot constituency. Don waited patiently, but in vain, for some sort of group opinion to evolve; as our leader he was under siege and beginning to be visibly discomfited. This offered me an opportunity to try to accomplish something which I thought needed doing. I felt that we could make greater use of the Board’s standing committees, especially the nominating committee. The long discussion of future female representation seemed to me to present an opportunity to put the nominating committee to work, as well as to come to the rescue of our embattled standard-bearer. Accordingly, I moved that he refer the matter to the nominating committee. He excepted immediately, with profuse thanks. Over the next couple of years he frequently thanked me for the idea. I thought I had converted him into a regular use of the committee and congratulated myself on introducing a major advance in the governance of the Academy. Then one day, after thanking me one more time for rescuing him, he added, "of course, I had no intention of doing what you suggested. I expected to solve the matter in my own way. But you certainly got me off the hook at that terrible time."

Don was a straight thinker, and for this reason he became a Director of the mutual funds managed by Massachusetts Financial Services Company, where I spent most of my business life. His long and varied legal and business experience did not provide him with an especial interest in individual investments but, just as at Andover, he had an instinct for making sure that someone was doing the right things. As he attained some seniority he quietly assumed the position of spokesman for the “outside directors," those not part of the management. In 1982 Massachusetts Financial Services Company was sold to sun Life Assurance Company of Canada. The transfer of ownership requires the acquiescence of the outside directors of the funds and, as might be expected, these independent minded individuals did not all arrive at parallel conclusions at the same time. This provided the stuff of which McLean’s favorite playing turf was made. It was quite characteristic of Don that he saw this as an interesting challenge and he said to the Chairman of MFS, “I will have to decide how to go about bringing this off.” It was probably not the issue of the sale itself that interested him as much as how to produce a consensus that satisfied everyone.

Don was a "good" man who knew and appreciated the virtues that constituted successful living with one's fellow human beings, but he was not a formalist. He was a practical man and, happily, had a proper touch of wry amusement about his world. In his last months his wife, Martha, adjusted that it would be welcome if he could continue to receive the written material sent to Directors before each monthly meeting. One day when the envelope arrived, he said her her: "It certainly is wonderful to get some mail seeking my advice and counsel, in addition to the notes saying someone is praying for me."

John L Cooper was President and/or Chairman of Massachusetts Financial Services Company Boston, and a Trustee of Phillips Academy. He also served as President of the Trustees of Mount  Holyoke College and as a Trustee of Massachusetts General Hospital.