Spoiled And Lazy; Hungry And Energetic
A few years ago, I read an opinion piece regarding the demise of the US auto industry. The author stated that because they were spoon fed boatloads of money by the US government to design and build military hardware during WWII, the car companies morphed into spoiled and lazy sloths; they stopped innovating on their own nickel. Unless a sugar daddy (like the US government) was going to externally subsidize the effort, they weren’t gonna open the company coffers to develop new products or vastly improve their existing ones. Because of this overly conservative mindset (and the poo pooing away of Deming’s quality movement), the Japanese eventually blew right by the big three – even though their nation was decimated by the war and they had to start from scratch.
The same danger applies today, every day, to every company that builds things, especially big things, for government orgs. Understandably, since creating and continuously improving big complex systems requires big investments and big scary risks to be overcome, companies are loathe to pour money into what may eventually turn out to be an infinite rat hole. However, if all the competitors in the market space have the same welfare mindset, then no one will sprint out ahead of the pack and all participants may still prosper – until money gets tight. When the external dollar stream slows to a trickle, those (if any) competitors who’ve boldly invested in the future and successfully transformed their investments into product improvements and new product portfolio additions, rise to the top. It’s the hungry and energetic, not the spoiled and lazy, that continuously prosper through good times and bad.
Is your company spoiled and lazy, or hungry and energetic? If it’s the former, what actions does your company take when tough economic times emerge and the money stream slows?
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Sometimes innovation and improvement will only be born from failure and destruction. The auto industry is a perfect example. The Japanese adopted the Deming model and other techniques because its industry was physically destroyed during WW II. It is very rare a company will take a large step wise improvement as part of a normal evolutionary path. This is a natural part of life. Even in nature animals and plants evolve to master their current environment. If their environment changes too fast then they tend to become extinct or evolve into another species. The same can be said for the business environment.
Last night I went and saw the movie “Up In The Air”. It’s about a guy who fires other companiy’s employees. Anyway the constant BS theme in the firings is that they are a new beginning. Which is a hard truth to a point. It is same is the truth at the company level. As one company goes out of business another will have an opportunity innovate and fill the niche.