Posts Tagged → Bush
Managing Change
Washington, DC — The new buzzword for the candidate to reside in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is “Change”. They all want to see change, in government, jobs, energy, commerce, even in our diet and health.
Never is a word mentioned about How this change will take place, and more important How it will be managed. True there is an urgent need for change. The failed policies of the Bush Administration can be seen everywhere, and nowhere is it more obvious as when Americans fill up their autos. The price of Oil is a direct result of mismanagement of both the war, the economy and global relations. Consider the amount of oil the US military uses in Iraq and you will understand my point.
The indicators for today’s failures have been visible for a long time, but ignored. How can the world’s only Superpower admit it has problems with management, and most of the young managers and VP’s are a product of a failed education system where cookie cutter diplomas are valued far more than real world experience. A good case study is to look at the “Unforeseen Consequences” of diverting Corn to Ethanol production, away from the food chain. The problem is that it was seen a long time ago by those of us who bothered to look at the intelligence, and calculated the predictions. But it pandered to the “Special Interests” and has netted billions of dollars for those lucky enough to get a chunk of the Pork Barrel.
America has embarked on a free fall without a parachute, that is driven by greed, and where ability and life experiences are replaced by sound bites, slogans, and feel-good media. Most believe the structural failures in banking, manufacturing, transportation and the critical infrastructure are only an anomaly, the Stock Market is booming, and the Good Times are coming back shortly. Young managers have been led to believe, by grossly naive twenty something Consultants from the major Accounting firms that experienced human resources in a company are easily replaced, and that saving money and increasing the bottom line are the only metrics they need watch.
Most sources of political, financial and commercial intelligence show a lengthy period of tumultuous change ahead, where the ability to manage this transition in a global competitive environment will be the difference between success or failure of the project, division, even the corporation. Many major corporations are facing failure at worst, or chaos at best.
Highly visible change is clearly seen coming in the pharmaceutical, financial and energy sectors, as well as in the defense sector, making huge profits from unsustainable military actions. The choice for the voter in November will be between healthcare and housing, versus military aggression around the world. The economy can’t support both. The energy sector is the most visible as prices rocket amid pure speculation by Hedge Funds and money managers. There is lots of oil out there and the world is reasonably stable. This greed will drive us deeper into recession, seen by everyone except George Bush.
Many of the managers and business leaders today have never experienced a recession, and have little or no experience of international business. America has lived for too long on credit from overseas, unrealistic expectations, and flawed management theories to boost the bottom line at any cost to the workforce. The skills needed to manage change in an enterprise can’t be learned from reading books about Cheese, from attending a handful of lectures from Academia, and taken in isolation.
In April 2008 I decided to focus on the political and energy sectors, as the sheer volume of global intelligence was swamping our networks. The energy sector and the associated water and food sectors are closely intertwined, and the future looks bleak, and very, very expensive.
Let’s hope there are more than cute TV commercials and sound bites in the pipeline!