As a CM it is not natural to start developping a grudge against corporations. After all, what problems have we ever had in updating a credit line to companies of same size than ours; whereas have we not spent the whole life in sending out warning signals on small and medium sized firms heavely dependent on deferred terms plus cronical delays for survival?
On the other hand one cannot feel hurt by cases such as Enron or Worldcom or what else, that can hit hard like eartquakes, since no one can be judged responsible where a bunch of auditors have failed. Neither scandals nor corrupted people which have always existed can affect the system or a CM as an individual.
“Certainly it annoyed the 2 Managers who were visiting their customer to be told to wait, while they were visiting a firm of less 15 workers, in a space of less 200 square metres in the outskirts of Prato. 4 Chinese girls had just entered to buy scraps of tissues. The lady owner of the firm had interrupted their meeting, she had served the girls and then had explained that the Chinese would make small handbags out of these scraps. When the meeting was over the 2 Managers had been able to put together the missing pieces of the puzzle. The lady owned several tiny workshops, each one was a legal entity of its own, each one had different machinery which would produce a special type of tissue. Depending on the seasonal and volatile caprice of fashion, she would shut the workshops that saw a drop on sales and she would open the one which could produce the new tissue that would soon become trendy. Same workers were made redundant by one legal entity and would immediately be hired by the sister company. Everything was happening without any interference of unions and fiscal authorities. Which database of any reporting agency, which business plan would have captured such tiny and frenzy activity?”
With a car, high speed may lead to a crush. But high growth is the need of the current economic climate. IT programs, PCs, mobile phones, any gadgets soon become old, well before one has had the opportunity to exploit them up to at least 50 pct of their capacity.
With corporate organizations it is more or less the same situation: any change is rushed upon individuals who need to adapt immediately or be swept away. Errors are seldom investigated. The swift changes at the top of high hierarcies of corporations must not confuse anyone. Each move will only increase their rapacious greed. High ranked managers push ahead for new solutions, that are brought forward by internal motivated carrierists and external greedy advisors. Long term structural changes are made with a short-sighted look at the company’s target, another eye at their company’s performance at the stock exchange.
It is a new management’s style. None will remain still in the same position awaiting developments. Carrerists will move to a new position. Talented advisors will soon be offering a new service, drafting a new scenario, imposing another rythm. Everybody is again to get up and running before one can even walk. It is a drugged economy with no time to turn over the shoulder to the past for analysis on possible errors because immediately there is a new product which is supposed to bring the solution to the problems of the program one has just started using.It is impressive how many changes are dictated by creative studies. One slide after another these presentations bring new shapes to corporations, like TV everything is live before it is real.
It is management by powerpoint, centralized processes that must go with centralized systems, above country’s legislation and fiscal requirements. To enter into a large database a name and address of a foreign company, when the local language is unknown, is like letting the first brick be laid by one who is not a mason. To administer centrally accounting processes of several legal entities with different country’s legislation and fiscal requirements that have not yet been harmonised, to run these centralised functions with temporary employees who quit before they have acquired enough knowledge to master their own jobs, to go through several phases of job cuts with one quarter as long-term vision, all is like building a castle on quicksand. Isn’t this the current scenario of many multinational companies in the States and in Europe?
Unallocated costs cause variances of 20% to 30% of standard prices every month – what policy can be played in the market? Funds that are received but remain not matched to specific invoices or even to specific customers’ accounts continue to grow to the size of a company’s portfolio. Inquiries for lost funds in bank channels often remain open for months. Tickets are being opened for many queries and sometime get closed without a proper solution to issue. Un-collectible credits inflate the assets of corporations.
Manipulation of balance sheets are not necessarily linked to corruption, but can also be the result of centralized processes, fast changes, the always-positive-attitude that is tantamount to a completely lack of dialogue with employees, mismanagement. Continuous internal surveys have similarities in the way politicians administer their image, as a tool for measuring support rather than a democratic approach. Could also security and therefore the environment be affected by these rapid economic trends? Many companies spend a lot of resources on security; any accident would be felt as one of the most dangerous downturns. Still, boasting attitudes is the most practiced sport. But hard to be achieved targets, mixed with fears of job losses can lead to disasters.
Other scenarios are always possible: to remain still in the middle of the tornado. Swift changes that require swift decisions on the one hand, on the other hand managers who are afraid to make errors. Meetings, teleconferences, surveys, elaborated projects can easily become tools to protect one’s career from mistakenly taking sides when the crux of the matter is reached, the road parts in a crossroad, when issues bring a variety of potential solutions with uncertain effects. Either through team discussions, or fully aligned to his own hierarchy, why should the indecisive manager bother to push ahead in any directions. If one is part of the organization, it is folly to move alone.
Nothing is more amazing than the news business. Apart from sports and entertainments, most TV news are about tragedies and scandals of any sort. Newspapers banish from first columns of first pages whatever could be seen other than the most appalling occurrences. In few words all media compete in bad news with the exception of corporations’ newsletters, press releases, quarterly announcements of their economic results which celebrate any achievement as a successfully one. Internal jargon is so dependant on pro-active thinking that any criticism risks to be interpreted either as a mere attack or, if tempered by a layer of constructive thinking, it goes unnoticed.
With its bureaucracy and dictatorial organization crossing states’ boundaries, would not a corporation have been the ideal ground for Kafca, had he lived nowadays, to generate his masterpiece ‘The trial’?. But here are other areas, other scenarios.
The Prato district (Italy) with its 178000 inhabitants and an almost an equal number of small-medium sized companies ( a proliferation helped by Chinese immigrants) is at the opposite side of large enterprises. In a territory where art had been the root of the economy for centuries, a significant number of small firms, independent companies, while competing with each other and flourishing together, have found ways to develop expertise, to cover efficiently one segment of the market and to be second to none.
With a natural instinct for beauty and business, these artisans are creating fabrics that are looked as masterpieces; like old fashioned-entrepreneurs they are close to the working community, they care about their town and territory; no piece of mind is set up or longing to become dominant over other human beings. Life is less obsessed by economic wealth.
However there is also the other face of the coin. Like an iceberg, a good deal of these activities are underwater. The hidden economy with money not recorded on balance sheets, workers without a public pension fund, tax free revenues, everything looks better (for the delinquent and for the poor entrepreneur) than a tax and duty free zone where there is no need even to register. It is kind of a piece of art of the free economy.
“Certainly it annoyed the 2 Managers who had come to meet their customer to be told to wait, while they were visiting a firm of less 15 workers, in a space of less 200 square metres in the outskirts of Prato. 4 Chinese girls had just entered to buy scraps of tissues. The lady owner of the firm had interrupted their meeting, she had served the girls and then had explained that the Chinese would make small handbags out of these scraps. She had no path set up for an ascending career and had no vision.
When the meeting was over the 2 Managers had been able to put together the missing pieces of the puzzle. The lady owned several tiny workshops, each one was a legal entity of its own, each one had different machinery which would produce a special type of tissue. Depending on the seasonal and volatile caprice of fashion, she would shut the workshops that saw a drop on sales and she would open the one which could produce the new tissue that would soon become trendy. Same workers were made redundant by one legal entity and would immediately be hired by the sister company. Everything was happening without any interference of unions and fiscal authorities. Which database of any reporting agency, which business plan would have captured such tiny and frenzy activity?”
What resources are given CMs to deal with both such free zone markets and corporations?
“Daddy, I got ‘good’ for my homework… My friend got ‘very good’. Do you mind?”
“Of course not: son, it’s good to be first; perfect to be second or just above the average.”
AF Sept.2003
