JUST DO IT?

When I stopped laughing I realised a senior executive at the big global Corporation I was talking to this week had defined what lay at the root of the VW fiasco. We were talking about the sclerosis that was infecting his business.

“We’re great at diagnosing problems but hopeless at fixing the problems.”
“Why?” I asked                                                                                                                                           “Because we have action points like this: Action: Fix the problem.”

I was laughing so much because it simplifies our journey towards a perfect world by issuing such clear instructions.  Action: cure cancer; Action: stop wars; Action: reverse climate change; Action: be happy.
I recalled the quote from Michael Jordan.

“If you're trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I've had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”

To which I always wanted to ask

“Does that include cheating as a solution?”

The command and control mentality that pervades so many companies leads to a mind set of “Don’t care how you do it just do it….action: solve the problem - don’t care how.”

Do we suppose that the guys at VW sat there and said what a very effective advertising executive, now sadly dead, once said to his assembled team:

“This is a crisis. We have only one fool-proof strategy at this point. We shall have to lie.”

I suspect a creeping sense of dismay at failing to crack the US market fast enough and realising changing minds about diesel emissions was seen as key to this led to a mission of collective mistranslation and Nike do-it behaviour plus a feeling of everyone-else-does-it/could-do-it/will-do-it so we’ll do it - schoolboy stuff. Having said this is not to excuse what happened nor to excuse what I suspect will be the consequences of what VW contrived to do in working around the problems they saw.

In a world of emotional branding where decades has been invested in clothes of “trust me with your life, your family’s life, your new born baby’s life”; where the brand VW becomes part of the family, betrayal of trust has terrible penalties. VW has been caught having an affair with the Devil - there are scorch marks on its collar.

Two VW executives said telling things:
“We’ve completely screwed up”
“We must win back trust”

No. Both statements are those that a serial adulterer might make not a repentant supplier…you earn trust not win it. This is not ultimately a game.

The lessons from VW, RBS, BP and Enron are always the same although the circumstances each faced and the wickedness is different for each.

If you are determined in a come-what-may sort of way to be the biggest you will always, in the end, cut corners, fall short of being properly diligent and revert to cheating.

Strenuous competition is OK but never forget what you really, really  stand for.

ENCOURAGING BAD BUSINESS TO CHANGE (OR DIE) RATHER THAN WITHER

“It is the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not 

die, but only retire a little from sight and afterwards return again. 

Nothing is dead; men feign themselves dead, and endure mock funerals 

and mournful obituaries, and there they stand looking out of the 

window, sound and well, in some new strange disguise.” 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is the anthem of corporate life. The return of “motor city”. The glorious renaissance of BP. The rebirth of Merrill Lynch.  A group of us were talking about Thornton’s and Kodak and similar companies; enterprises to which the word enterprise has long ceased to be appropriate. Creatures coughing, withering and trying to reinvent themselves using the self-same ingredients that had caused their demise. Proving themselves mad as Einstein suggested:

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

And yet despite all the changes that are happening daily there seems to be a curious recycling going on. Look at the top CEOs and CFOs – pretty much the usual suspects. Look at the high street and reflect in general how long it takes the mortally wounded to actually die. We concluded that all those who failed did so for two obvious reasons. Failing to give consumers what they wanted or just boring them by failing to innovate or believing that they could retain their success eternally – The Dorian Gray fallacy. Kodak executives were brainwashed into believing they were right and the world was wrong. So it was with Rank Xerox, De La Rue, Motorola and Nokia.

Executives get paralysed by the prospect and consequences of change. Courage goes with executive packages.  But let’s suppose we could change anything ahead of having to – suppose we constantly reinvented things before we got outdated or under threat.  I am not suggesting we set up a commercial Dignitas whereby dodgy companies are taken to Switzerland before they are ready but that early on they have the courage to turn their faces from the CFOs to the CMOs and say – what (if anything) can we do with what we’ve got that will be world class?

To go back to Emerson how can we create something “sound and well, in some new strange disguise.”

That’s real marketing.

THAT WAS THE YEAR THAT WAS...

it’s over, let it go

I’m not much into nostalgia. The future always seems to be more exciting than the past about which there is nothing you can do.

However here’s a brief glance at ten events from 2010 that we can learn from before fast forwarding into 2011.

i)    The problems with the Euro - specifically its probable demise. Look at Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain and ask yourself if rapid rushes for growth funded by debt ever made sense.

ii)    No one is immune to demise. Ask the nearly-made-it-to-basket-case-Titans, BP and Toyota.

iii)    Nature has a way of putting things into perspective. I loved that volcanic ash. How else would I have got to see Anglesey and have read the first Stieg Larssen in one sitting as I came back from Ireland by car, boat and train?

iv)    And Haiti. Remember the earthquake. Well hallo….it’s got worse. And no the money we gave didn’t get through. And, yes, it’s off our radar now. Remember this is the age of short memories.

v)    We take water for granted. Unless we live in Belfast where some 60,000 people have had no running water since Christmas. Take nothing for granted.

vi)    The coalition is not a party. It’s a coalition. It’s a model for all of us…working together. Of course it disagrees and stumbles. At least it feels real as opposed to Old Tory and New Labour.

vii)    “Yes you can.” Not necessarily Barack. No one doing a job or with political power will be loved or liked forever or, nowadays, for more than a month or so. Thicken your skin. This is not a popularity contest.

viii)    Suddenly we’ve retained the Ashes, the Ryder Cup, are breeding convincing Olympiads and are still also-rans at football. Maybe FIFA were right.

ix)    Is the mini-celebrity bubble going to burst? Strictly Being Fired and X Factory seem to belong to another age. Like Simon Cowell’s teeth. I don’t think I can bear another conversation about Matt Cardle.

x)    And that one blinding moment of unalloyed joy and simple humanity. The Chilean Miners’ Rescue.

Be humble. Be authentic. Be resolute.  Be prepared. Be frugal. Smell the flowers and be grateful.