Failures – exposed, reflected upon, considered

First Wall Street and now it seems GM and Chrysler came begging at the governments doors for additional $20+ billion dollars. What do they offer in exchange for this money? They want to give buyouts and early retirements packagesin their effort of cost cutting and layoffs. This means essentially that the two companies aim at reviving themselves the old, traditional way adding perhaps an edge of efficiency, leanness and flair of cautiousness in these new realities or do they offer a radical shift, a ideological quantum leap enabling reconstruction of an automotive industry that befits well the expectations, technological progress and strategic vision inherent in the 21st century?

GM and Chrysler so far seem to have chosen what is best characterised by Albert Einstein’s saying, “You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.”

Below is an illuminating piece on what (six) mistakes were made by Detroit industries during the 20th century from Umair Haque, one of visionary thinkers on this aspect. These errors, while allegedly bringing automobile industry to their knees in the 21st century, were largely paralleled, ideologically, by other mainstream industries of the 20th century.

1. Old rule: Choose evil. Industrial era business is unrepentantly and almost sociopathically evil: shifting costs onto others, while striving to internalize benefits. Detroit chose lobbying, marketing wars, and low-cost hardball – to always and everywhere try to socialize costs and privatize benefits. Never was this truer than Detroit’s lobbying against public transport throughout the 20^th century. Why does public transport in the States suck? Because Detroit’s lobbying machine doesn’t.

New rule? Choose good. In the 21^st century, every moral imperative is also a strategic imperative:doing good – for customers, employees, suppliers, or society – is a radical strategic choice that unlocks new pathways to innovation and growth. The opportunity cost of defending evil for Detroit was never learning how to choose good – and that’s a crucial mistake other auto players didn’t make. Tata chose to make a car that was accessible to the world’s poor. Porsche and BMW chose to invest in talent, people, and imagination. Honda and Toyota chose to invest in renewables and partnerships with the public sector. All opened new avenues to growth for an industry at the brink of extinction.

2. Old rule: Selfishness is self-interest.What’s strategic is supposed to be what’s in the firm’s self-interest. But how do we define self-interest? Consider for a second the fact that as recently as this year, Detroit’s lobbyists were hard at work, opposing stricter fuel efficiency standards. That’s 20^thcentury self-interest at its finest – not authentic interest for one’s own long-run outcomes, but simply a childlike selfishness, both myopic and narrow, where cutting off the nose to spite the face is as rational as mutual nuclear annihilation.

New rule? Purpose is self-interest. The 21^stcentury demands a more enlightened self-interest: one factoring in a longer timescale, fuller contingencies, and an honest and broad consideration of hidden and unintended consequences to people, society and the environment. When we understand all that, have begun to develop a purpose – a way in which we will change the world radically for the better. By confusing selfishness with self-interest, Detroit vaporized it’s own purpose – and will stay trapped in a wilderness of economic meaninglessess until it rediscovers it.

3. Old rule: Maximize destructiveness. The goal of orthodox strategy is to destroy the ability of others’ to imitate or commoditize you. And Detroit was a master of the art of destructive strategy: patenting, trademarking, and litigating; playing hardball to control distribution channels, defending brands with disproportionately steep marketing investment, and building entire new marques to gain share in key markets and segments. The point of all these tired, stale 20^th century strategic moves was the same: strategy as an exercise in exclusion, isolation, and barrier-building.

New rule? Get constructive. True 21^st century businesses can be judged in the blink of an eye: how intensely do they put the “co” in constructive? Can they let demand spark and fuel co-creation, can they co-produce from a pool of shared resources, are they capable of letting value activities be co-managed, are they tuned to cooperate? Detroit can’t get constructive because it’s spent the better part of a century playing the games of destructive strategy.

4. Old rule: Seek differentiation. When is a Jaguar really just a Ford? When it’s an S-Type. Under Alfred Sloan, GM famously organized itself divisionally – Pontiac, Buick, Cadillac… – for the sole purpose of differentiation. But industrial era differentiation is too often just skin-deep: the same lemons with slightly different marketing, distribution, and branding. So why pay a steep premium for a Buick if it’s just a Chevy with slightly nicer trim? Detroit discovered the hard way that in the 21^st century, the concept of differentiation is increasingly stale.

New rule? Seek difference. Ultimately, the problem is simple: differentiation is about perception. Difference is about reality. People in the 21^stcentury aren’t the zombified, braindead consumers of the 20^th century. And so the 21^st century demands not mere differentiation – a bean counters’ eye view of the world if ever there was one – but true difference. True difference is built by making different choices from the ground up – different in the very essence of the value activities that make the wheels of production and consumption spin. Porsche and BMW strove for difference – not mere differentiation – and it is that choice that is at the heart of their global leadership of the automotive sector.

5. Old rule: Seek agility. Strategy is in many ways simply the avoidance of crisis – the evasion of threat, weakness, and vulnerability. The goal of strategy as the avoidance of crisis is simple: agility. Industrial-era corporations seek agility, in other words, by insulating themselves from real-world economic pressures – that’s what Detroit did bar none, by always seeking to game the system: lobbying, marketing, and wheeling-and-dealing it’s way straight into oblivion.

New rule? Seek crisis. By insulating themselves from real-world economic pressures, boardrooms also dilute and sap incentives for innovation and renewal. Detroit wasn’t innovating because the opportunity cost of strategy as gamesmanship was, ultimately, foregoing innovation itself. In the 21^stcentury, gamesmanship – and its attendant dilution of incentives – is a sure path to near terminal strategy decay. Forget Detroit – just ask big music, big pharma, or big food.

6. Old rule: Advantage happens against. Orthodox econ holds that it is through the pursuit of competitive advantage that corporations create the most value most quickly and reliably. And that’s a mistake Detroit made to the hilt. It sought a nakedly competitive advantage – against suppliers, dealers, consumers, and society alike. The result is an industry crippled by structurally antagonistic relationships with labour, buyers, suppliers, consumers, and society alike.

New rule? Advantage happens for. Competitive advantage against bears a striking resemblance to simply bullying. Bullying is easy: just as in the sandbox, any boardroom with market power can jack up margins by forcing others – buyers, suppliers, consumers, society – to bear costs. But if every corporation across the economy is playing that game, the economy’s just a game of musical chairs.

The logic of the market is predicated on the pervasive and obvious inequality of humans. No two people have the same scales of values, talents, or ambitions. It is this radical inequality, and the freedom to choose our own lot in life, that makes markets – division of labor, production and distribution of goods and services – possible. Our differences are reflected in our outcomes and results which are converted into market commodities/products/services. The latter we exchange for what we need/want but do not have.

In (most of modern) politics the ideological parallel is easily imitated. For example, system of voting is designed to replicate the market’s participatory features. In fact, it is a perverse distortion of the market system. In markets, you get the goods you pay for. If you don’t and there’s been a violation of contract, you have legal recourse. In voting, people are not actually purchasing anything but the politician’s word/promises, which is legally un-claimable. Furthermore, a politician has every incentive to lie, manipulate, or twist to produce the desired result.

“Politicians shake our hand before elections and our trust thereafter.”

Politics does not consider individuals. We are merely a tiny speck on the vast blob called “nation,” and what this blob “thinks” is only relevant insofar as it accords with a political agenda advantageous to the country and its friends. During elections – our one opportunity to feel ourselves important and involved in our country’s politics – we are asked to cast ballots for people we do not know (or know what they want us to know) because they make promises they are under no obligation to keep – or keep them if it advances their agenda, enlarges their purse or contributes towards another election term for them. What’s even worse, the voting gesture is pointless on the margin. The chances that any one vote will actually have an impact are so infinitesimally small as to be meaningless.

In markets, success means entrepreneurial talent or business acumen which translates into the ability to anticipate, create and serve the needs of the market. In politics, success means the ability to twist and manipulate public opinion so that enough fools (so regarded by politicians) reaffirm the politician’s power and ambitions. It takes special talents to do this, which are not cultivated in good families – read Machiavelli. In markets, most successful usually deserve the credit due to merit, hard work and shrewd vision. In politics, the most successful usually excel in art of acting,  (in best of cases) rhetoric  -  in recent years, we hardly have seen any – narrow-mindedness and self-aggrandizement.

A politician, according to Ambrose Bierce’s dictionary, is “an eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive.”

What about likes of Patrick Henry and George Mason? They wanted to separate (the American) society and government to protect the people from being manipulated by cunning political forces.  Albert Jay Nock was right to characterize a country, democratic or otherwise, as a parasite on society, whereas markets (especially those where innovation and entrepreneurship are common) and economic production represent lifeblood of (free/healthy) societies.

Politics and markets affect each other. When politics has an upper hand, life of common people gets worse. When markets have an upper hand, life of people gets worse as well.

Judge for yourself.

In normal times as well as hard times, trust is the foundation of any collective human endeavor, be it in business, in politics or in any other social or group activity. “Does your behavior damage trust?” is a key question and following are 25 behavioral patterns that contribute to creating mistrust within your team/group.

1. You fail to keep your promises, agreements and commitments.
2. You serve your self first and others only when it is convenient.
3. You micromanage and resist delegating.
4. You demonstrate an inconsistency between what you say and how you behave.
5. You fail to share critical information with your colleagues.
6. You choose to not tell the truth.
7. You resort to blaming and scapegoating others rather than own your mistakes.
8. You judge, and criticize rather than offer constructive feedback.
9. You betray confidences, gossip and talk about others behind their backs.
10. You choose to not allow others to contribute or make decisions.
11. You downplay others’ talents, knowledge and skills.
12. You refuse to support others with their professional development.
13. You resist creating shared values, expectations and intentions in favor of your own agenda; you refuse to compromise and foster win-lose arguments.
14. You refuse to be held accountable by your colleagues.
15. You resist discussing your personal life, allowing your vulnerability, disclosing your weaknesses and admitting your relationship challenges.
16. You rationalize sarcasm, put-down humor and off-putting remarks as “good for the group”.
17. You fail to admit you need support and don’t ask colleagues for help.
18. You take others’ suggestions and critiques as personal attacks.
19. You fail to speak up in team meetings and avoid contributing constructively.
20. You refuse to consider the idea of constructive conflict and avoid conflict at all costs.
21. You consistently hijack team meetings and move them off topic.
22. You refuse to follow through on decisions agreed upon at team meetings.
23. You secretly engage in back-door negotiations with other team members to create your own alliances.
24. You refuse to give others the benefit of the doubt and prefer to judge them without asking them to explain their position or actions.
25. You refuse to apologize for mistakes, misunderstandings and inappropriate behavior and dig your heels in to defend yourself and protect your reputation.

This list is especially relevant for leaders and those appointed to leadership positions for trust is the foundation of successful leadership.

Another excellent article (below) about virtues of business/entrepreneurial failure.

I believe that failing daily does two things, it teaches me what I need to do better; and it reminds me of what failure feels like. Both are awesome outcomes.

Temperance (Gluttony)

“The downside to this level of ambition is that it’s not complicated to overload yourself. I’ve learned that ambition minus realism often equals failure.”

The truth is that ambition always has a lack of realism. Its impossible to believe you will one day be the best without believing first that you are capable of being the best. You have to be unrealistic in your expectations to truly become successful. Its the lack of realism that creates the potential for failure.

The best failures are measured and tempered with self control. Understand the downside of any potential failure. Keep the failure contained through careful understanding.

Charity (Greed)

“Sacrificing your core business by spending too much time on non-core ideas…It’s important to realize that not all ideas are worth pursuing”

Yet many people eventually fail through anlysis paralysis. I have a standard equation, out of 10 ideas, 8 suck. 1 is decent, and one is fantastic. To understand success through failure, one must be willing to become creative and think uniquely about the problem. By ideating, over time, several solutions are born. Being generous with yourself and allowing the ideation to occur, develops the potential for mass, measured failure.

And, failure always leads to success.

Diligence (Sloth)

“Where it can become mostly problematic is when it keeps you from seeing a project through to the end.”

I get what Jeffrey is saying here. Starting projects is easy. The middle is not that hard, but to finish? Often its a Herculean effort. Why? Because the completion of a project allows you to determine if it was a success or failure. The completion of a project allows OTHERS to say if its a success or failure.

Its often easier to live in the grey area of undone, than it is to live in the world of definition.

With failures its the same way. My favorite saying is “failure is not what you do, but what you do after.”

Persevere. Fail a lot. Fail early. But be amazing once the failures teach you how to succeed.

Chastity (Lust)

“Getting lured away from what you need to do by what you want to do.”

Lust is an interesting sin. By definition, Lust involves a lack of thought with a focus on immediate gratification. So how does the virtue, Chasity or Purity work with failure? Failure is pure. There is nothing about failure that can be soiled. Each failure creates the same emotions, usually regret and disappointment, and each failure creates the same reality. Yet, each failure, when learning occurs, also creates the very real case of being one step closer to success.

It is impossible to do nothing but succeed if each failure is coupled with learning. You dont have to lust after success to achieve it.

Humility (Pride)

“Success has this extra-special way of super gluing on the ‘I’m so awesome’ blinders and fooling you into thinking that you’re the smartest person alive.”

The greatest thing about consistent failure, is that it reminds you that you cant solve every problem. That you arent the greatest. That at the end of the day only the outcome matters in the measurement of success, not the process.

Failure teaches us that the real talent is the recovering and learning from failure. Turning that failure (perhaps matching it to a previous failure) into a road map for success is what separates the great from the good.

Allow the emotion of humility to provide you the open-mindedness to review your failures in such a way as to improve incrementally and move towards success.

Patience (Wrath)

“Wrath is energy, and like all energy it can be used to good or evil. I like to think about the ratio of windshield to rear-view mirror and use that idea to focus my energy on what’s next.”

If wrath is energy, then patience is focused energy. Its hard to fail, fail and then fail again. You want to push, you want to accelerate the process. You move into a world of immediate gratification and would rather skip to the success part of the adventure.

Patience is not just a function of waiting, or sitting idly by. Patience is actually a function of perseverance.

If you read Jeffrey’s post, and remove the “Seven Sins” metaphor, every point he makes actually is interwoven. Words like energy, focus, hard work are repeated themes.

Failure becomes a part of the process, removing the need for a perceived failure end point.

Satisfaction/Kindness (Envy)

“Just stay true to your original plans; see them through; and understand that more-often-than-not, these new and exciting concepts are rarely vetted for use beyond their original purpose, thus having the extreme ability to only add layers of complexity to what you already do.”

Envy kills success. Focusing on competitors is a horrible action that causes most companies to lose focus. If you are doing what you need to do, focusing and understanding the market, your competitors dont matter.

Envy creates failure. Simple enough.

But, the key to all of this, is if you understand the importance of failure to the creation of success; you will also experience true satisfaction.

You have succeeded and failed completely.

And, becoming a success at the end of the day is the greatest satisfaction.