An algebraic equation will never be able to factor in the alchemic talents of the likes of Harold Geneen.
Yet it surely also had a lot to do with Mr Geneen's absence.
Thankfully, Harold Geneen, the great conglomerator of the 1960s and early 1970s, has no time for such euphemisms or delusions.
Within this context, Mr Geneen is scathing about modern managers treating their employees as a cost rather than a resource.
Despite his management creed's fascination with objective facts, it only worked if somebody like Mr Geneen held it all together.
Admittedly, taking Mr Geneen at his extraordinarily smug evaluation of himself requires an effort at forgetfulness on the part of his readers.
Under Harold Geneen, an Englishman who headed the American company for many years, ITT simultaneously owned bakeries, telephone companies, hotels and a forest-products business.
The Geneen machine ran on the principle that sound financial management could be applied successfully to any business, from rental cars to bakeries to insurance.
Harold Geneen, a quintessentially American businessman, was born in Britain.
Despite paying himself a small fortune and bullying his employees, Mr Geneen (who worked a 70-hour week and seemed to live off hamburgers) inspired considerable loyalty among his staff.
Based in White Plains, New York, the company is a remnant of the sprawling empire assembled, on the back of an ancient telegraph business, by Harold Geneen, the famous conglomerator of the 1960s.
Mr Geneen, a businessman through and through, denied that this disclosure and others of a similar nature had anything to do with him leaving the company at the end of the 1970s.
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