I’ve got to get better at proof reading…

I look forward to reading your writing. I hope you are right, but I fear the “cleansing” as you call it, will be far more painful. From an observers perspective, revolutions might be “interesting” and maybe even “appropriate”, but from the perspective of someone running a business or the multitude of people caught up in the “revolution”, I don’t think “interesting” or “appropriate” are the right adjectives to use. Consider this fact:

Nationwide, according to data from the FBI and the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, November gun background checks increased 42 percent from the year before. In December, background checks were up 24 percent, 29 percent in January, and 23 percent in February. Background checks are considered an indication of retail sale activity.
http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20090315-NEWS-903150345

Whatever you think of the AIG Financial Products division, death threats have been sent to AIG executives, increased security has been recommended and put in place for banking executives and as the economic situation continues to worsen, the “mash-up expectations of generation Facebook” will be the over riding concern of business leaders.

There are many real problems:
It will be 2012 before the cancer of adjustable rate mortgages work their way out of the system, and this is only a single element driving a housing crisis that will lead to additional foreclosures and destruction of asset wealth.

There is a banking/credit crisis that still holds much of the business activity in the world hostage.

The is a demographic shift as baby-boomers (45-65) move out of their peak spending years (40 to 60) into the much lower spending patterns of retirement. This does not count the tremendous destruction of their assets in stocks and home values.

These factors have caused a demand crisis. I live in California where unemployment is 10.5%. Nationwide, unemployment may only be 8.5%, but under employment (those wanting to work more than they are currently able) is running over 14%. Of those employed, over 20% fear they will lose their job in the next year. The Grinch not only stole Christmas, he has taken huge amounts of demand out of the market at the same time business are sitting with excess supplies of everything from flat-screen televisions to Starbucks locations.

There is also a crisis in corporate governance and management. From ENRON to Wall St to AIG, there is a separation of executive management from the workings of a business and a lack of faith in executive management’s interest in anything other than their own personal gain.

I have no idea how the next five years are going to turn out. Last summer there were food riots in Greece, Spain is on the brink of disaster, France is encountering rioting before the summer even begins, Iceland has financially imploded, Switzerland and England have insolvent banks that it is not economically for the country’s to make whole and if China truly has sent 30 M people back to the provinces without jobs, given that countries history, it’s difficult to see how their situation will be resolved without blood literally running in the streets.

America is much better off than those countries, but with more people unemployed than every before in the history of America, maybe it would be worth reading Studs Terkel’s “Hard Times” rather than watching Star Trek fiction.

Garrick brings up one, best practices kill, or so says Tom Peters. They commoditize by removing difference. In a recession, offers expand beyond product and services reaching into accounts payable and other operations aspects of the firm. So it’s not as simple as standardizing everything, or cutting all costs.

It will be interesting to see how the B-schools try to fix how we got here. It’s nice to see some of them looking in the mirror and taking some of the blame. Still blame doesn’t fix the problem.

Globalism has brought us an economics of plenty, of surplus. Other factors have brought us a surplus of labor locally, not just globally. Somewhere along the way, the outsourcers have forgotten that it wasn’t supposed to be a zero-sum game, but we’ve gone down that path. We have systems that can win, but we don’t know how to define the win. Squeezing out all the costs just eliminates the consumers, and the consumers still have mortgages that lock in their cost of living for a long time, misery ensues. And, globalism is said to be a win, but in the long term and for whom? Economics as the study of wealth, rather than the study of the economic systems hints at the answer to that question and leaves misery to ensue. We need to find a new economics. It won’t be anything we’ve seen.

There was that Star Trek show where Picard and crew pick a businessman that had been frozen, so he could be thawed out later and cured of his ills, who wakes up and wants to call his broker. Sorry, but that economics no longer exists. Well, we are there, so where is the economics fictions that explore the possible futures. Oh, they should have been written long ago. It’s time to apply some imagination, some vision, some leadership. We need to quit looking back. It’s gone. Move along folks!

Yes, we learned the old rules so well. Felling like an Okie headed out on Route 66 before the song was written.

Thank you for your insights into the shifting patterns of management as the business landscape continues to change due to economic, cultural and generational influences. Your comments truly resonate with where my thoughts have been regarding the “seismic shift” as you put it. My personal perception is that these changes are coming (via demand of the employee and demands of th business) at a pace that is difficult to match without the knowledge or resources to understand how to develop or implement new approaches. These practices, in a rapidly changing economic and technological environment, pose a challenge to all members of the organizations. As I see it some of the strongest challenges lie in flexiblity, learning agility, and an openess to finding innovative ideas in non-traditional ways (outside of one’s department/sphere of influence). I would appreciate hearing some best practices of companies who are climbing this learning curve and the creative ways in which they are reaching this demand.