Watching a company unwind

[Spectrism]

I am watching another company unwind. It has a good niche market with a popular name and no real competitors. But.... it has forgotten who its customers are and is run by money people. While the market is strong, you can get away with that - for a while. But when the market turns, and when the slightest attempt is made by a new company to compete in that market, the power will shift.

I am watching the panic set in. I have seen companies go through bad markets and there are many doing that now. Some have already closed their doors or shipped the operations overseas. When things get tight, you begin to see the drowning swimmer primal reflexes. It ain't a pretty sight. You can know exactly what they need to do, but their emotional clawing at the water won't let them hear reason. And the splashing water multiplies the fear. And the customers take notice. Who wants to go near a drowning swimmer?

A sinking person fighting for life will attempt to stand on anyone or anything it can grab. He becomes a monster in the water careless about others. All thoughts are bound up in self-preservation.

I can't say what the company is or what market, but there are many in this condition. The desperation at the corporate level does not care about the desperation at the private level. Oh, sure, in the beginning they feign concern as they start chopping off heads. And, on a personal level, there is some sincere sadness. But like the drowning swimmer, anything and everything is a fair target for keeping the corporate head above water. It is an interesting study to watch the internal politics clashing with a shrinking pie.

[Glass]

I've seen companies do this as well. The most troubling thing is the way they look at you when you explain what is required. It's a vacant kind of look. It's like they can hear you but they can't make out what you're saying. Then you watch them fold and the employees move on as if nothing significant happend.... most do anyways.

[Spectrism]

Usually there is a lack of vision and sound leadership at the top. That is the killer. They rest on the laurels of past performance or reputation and let their real service or product suffer. They gouge their customers who begin to tell them that they are not happy.... but the company doesn't listen.

When customers get into tight money times, they will hold back on new purchases. They will find less efficient work-arounds if necessary to avoid expenditures. And, if the company has really been screwing up, the customers even buy from competitors at HIGHER prices or at higher future operating costs. Customers don't make rational decisions either. One thing they remember- is how they were treated.

[dys]

Great post. I'd like to add a couple of observations from my experiences in like circumstances:

Management, lacking vision as you alluded to, will tend to blame employees for the problems even if the blame doesn't rightfully rest on the employees shoulders. Then you get a situation that can best be described as 'the beatings will continue until morale improves'. It becomes a self reinforcing cycle....employees are making less money and are being driven harder and harder, so they are pissed off. They'll try to stick it to the company any chance they get, when no one is looking. Management isn't getting the results they want, so they are pissed off. Eventually, it becomes obvious that there are too many employees in management. That's when things really fall apart. Management will then go to work, individually, doing anything and everything they can to justify their existence. They'll write policy and process on top of policy and process, most of it counterproductive, and (if they manage to stick around long enough) eventually it ends up bordering on the laughably insane.

The individual with true business acumen tends to get fired or rendered the pariah in this situation, that's the sad part. As Glass said, no one wants to do what is necessary (especially if puts their job at risk).

dys

[Libertytree]

Sounds like the US .gov.

[gunDriller]

I am watching another company unwind. It has a good niche market with a popular name and no real competitors. But.... it has forgotten who its customers are and is run by money people. While the market is strong, you can get away with that - for a while. But when the market turns, and when the slightest attempt is made by a new company to compete in that market, the power will shift.

hope you keep extensive notes, so that when the time comes, you can share the details - without endangering your own livelihood.

[Twisted Titan]

Great post. I'd like to add a couple of observations from my experiences in like circumstances:

Management, lacking vision as you alluded to, will tend to blame employees for the problems even if the blame doesn't rightfully rest on the employees shoulders. Then you get a situation that can best be described as 'the beatings will continue until morale improves'. It becomes a self reinforcing cycle....employees are making less money and are being driven harder and harder, so they are pissed off. They'll try to stick it to the company any chance they get, when no one is looking. Management isn't getting the results they want, so they are pissed off. Eventually, it becomes obvious that there are too many employees in management. That's when things really fall apart. Management will then go to work, individually, doing anything and everything they can to justify their existence. They'll write policy and process on top of policy and process, most of it counterproductive, and (if they manage to stick around long enough) eventually it ends up bordering on the laughably insane.

The individual with true business acumen tends to get fired or rendered the pariah in this situation, that's the sad part. As Glass said, no one wants to do what is necessary (especially if puts their job at risk).

dys


That is exactly the same type of garbage taking place in healthcare.

it hasn't fully hit because the hosipitals are still being reimbursed(not as much) on charity care.

But the thin veneer is starting peel

[Spectrism]

Great post. I'd like to add a couple of observations from my experiences in like circumstances:

Management, lacking vision as you alluded to, will tend to blame employees for the problems even if the blame doesn't rightfully rest on the employees shoulders. Then you get a situation that can best be described as 'the beatings will continue until morale improves'. It becomes a self reinforcing cycle....employees are making less money and are being driven harder and harder, so they are pissed off. They'll try to stick it to the company any chance they get, when no one is looking. Management isn't getting the results they want, so they are pissed off. Eventually, it becomes obvious that there are too many employees in management. That's when things really fall apart. Management will then go to work, individually, doing anything and everything they can to justify their existence. They'll write policy and process on top of policy and process, most of it counterproductive, and (if they manage to stick around long enough) eventually it ends up bordering on the laughably insane.

The individual with true business acumen tends to get fired or rendered the pariah in this situation, that's the sad part. As Glass said, no one wants to do what is necessary (especially if puts their job at risk).

dys

Yeup- I see you have been there too. The blame game starts to pick up. Management starts riding the employees and everybody starts the butt-covering game. Vicious circles of politics wield their blades at each other. More time and energy is spent in self-defense than doing what needs to be done. The company turns in on itself and ignores the needs of its external customers. It even ignores internal customers if they have no authority over them. Soon, the system breaks down with inefficiency, poor quality and destroyed morale.

Leadership is replaced with management by metrics. Show me numbers. If you cannot put a number on it, it does not count.

[FreeEnergy]

My wife's mid-size company has been purchased by an industry monopoly. Her company went from startup to mid-size in very short period of time , while they hired a huge number of pretty smart people. Then monopoly came in and purchased. For about a year, while they were shmoozing FTC to approve smart people were slowly finding ways out. Now, that the merger is A-OK-ed (who wondered?) the work of moving the work to China and India has begun. Her company is basically being disintegrated. Smart people mostly moved around to niche areas, some moved on with strong contacts, owner will likely form another company and rehire best people. The monopoly is slow, most middle management is dumb, aggressive-controlling or reactive, so they are unlikely to hold on to key personnel. Most likely they just got rid of competitor and got some additional clients, that's all they care.

Pretty interesting to watch.

[Spectrism]

Sometimes that purchase is just to gain a key piece of technology. So many have moved operations to China- and they don't realize they just gave that fascist regime all their technology. Just try to pull the company out of China. Soon we wil be hearing about companies losing their plants in China as they cannot take them out. Just watch as the tensions rise and the whole world acts like drowning swimmers. Some of those swimmers have sharp claws.

[dys]

It is an interesting study to watch the internal politics clashing with a shrinking pie.

Yes, it is. The shrinking pie really chrystallizes the true nature of the soulless corporation.
The psychopaths that conceived of limited liabilites like corporations, insurance companies, special immunities, et al...were truly evil individuals.
I have seen more than a few good men totally corrupted by the corporate world...slowly morphing into the true nature of the corporations they represent.

dys

[LastResort]

The saying "shit rolls downhill" is funny. Usually problems start from the top not from the bottom...

[undgrd]

The people running mid to large sized companies are the same people who run this country. Extreme Type A personalities the size of skyscrapers that crack like fine China.

[gunDriller]

The saying "shit rolls downhill" is funny. Usually problems start from the top not from the bottom...

"corporations are like an outhouse. the big chunks float to the top".

sysadmin co-worker of mine wrote that on the CAD system log-in about 30 years ago. upper management was not amused ;)

[Book]

When things get tight, you begin to see the drowning swimmer primal reflexes. It ain't a pretty sight. You can know exactly what they need to do, but their emotional clawing at the water won't let them hear reason. And the splashing water multiplies the fear.



http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ntPPNQ544DI/TxHgyAya4VI/AAAAAAAANqE/HvrhrWjgmMU/s1600/80122877.jpg

http://www.digitaljournal.com/img/8/7/3/i/1/0/5/o/NY-POST-CostaConcordia-cover.jpg

A better metaphor: Captain claws his way into the lifeboat...lol.

:D

[dys]

An observation concerning a company that isn't going bust:
The company is doing well and is not in any trouble. Like a lot of other companies, they've trimmed the fat so lean that there is no more fat left to trim. The people that are left are very good at what they do. Now you have managers that have nothing left to 'manage'; everyone left does their job extremely well. So what do the managers do? They make up stuff to manage, stuff to complain about, policies to streamline that are already streamlined, processes to reinvent that don't need reinventing. It's pretty wild.

dys

[Glass]

An observation concerning a company that isn't going bust:
The company is doing well and is not in any trouble. Like a lot of other companies, they've trimmed the fat so lean that there is no more fat left to trim. The people that are left are very good at what they do. Now you have managers that have nothing left to 'manage'; everyone left does their job extremely well. So what do the managers do? They make up stuff to manage, stuff to complain about, policies to streamline that are already streamlined, processes to reinvent that don't need reinventing. It's pretty wild.

dys

Gee sounds like Government to me.

[Twisted Titan]

An observation concerning a company that isn't going bust:
The company is doing well and is not in any trouble. Like a lot of other companies, they've trimmed the fat so lean that there is no more fat left to trim. The people that are left are very good at what they do. Now you have managers that have nothing left to 'manage'; everyone left does their job extremely well. So what do the managers do? They make up stuff to manage, stuff to complain about, policies to streamline that are already streamlined, processes to reinvent that don't need reinventing. It's pretty wild.



dys


The serpent swallowing its own tail.

[Spectrism]

Funny you should bring up this thread. We just had a 10% layoff. Nobody in management was cut. Very top-heavy. We have empire builders fighting for supremacy. A company that looks in on itself with hungry eyes rather than looking at what customers want, is doomed to self-destruct. Feeding on itself- yes... that happens until they realize there is nothing left to eat. This is the worst we have have ever seen for market conditions in the history of the company.... and we are in a protected market.

I warned people in the last two years about what was coming and they ridiculed me. Now they are all nervous. I panicked early before the rush. Now I can be at peace.