Ben Graham's innovation was followed by the "proxyteer" wars, in which activist shareholders gathered together collections of proxy votes to overturn complacent managements.
The threat of hostile takeover did help awaken complacent managements, and hostile takeovers helped redeploy assets more efficiently.
Terry Smith wants to give Britain's "fat and complacent" fund management industry a bloody nose.
Insiders, who have grown up within the complacent BBC management culture, will find it particularly hard to make the changes needed.
In those days, buccaneers like Sir James Goldsmith, Carl C. Icahn and T. Boone Pickens roamed the land, terrorizing complacent corporate managements with fierce vows to "unlock shareholder value," a process that usually amounted to sacking management, laying off thousands of lower-ranking employees and borrowing a ton of money.
They typically find themselves bucking a complacent or skeptical management.
In its February issue, the Harvard Business Review (no less) said that "an arts degree is now perhaps the hottest credential in the world of business", with corporate recruiters trawling places such as the Rhode Island School of Design".Managers not MBAs" throws a stone into the often complacent world of management education.
"But we must not get complacent - only genuine management for nature will safeguard these and other plants from extinction". Plantlife says verges should be managed for wildlife as a matter of course, while remaining safe for motorists.
"In essence, the division was poorly managed, senior management was extremely complacent about their position in Japan and changes now have been insufficient to buck a tough sector trend," Cohen pointed out.
Managements grew complacent, unions greedy.
