Ben Compton gave us some thoughts -
> I've developed a bit of a theory on the matter. I think that the common
> idea that all of this change is to increase competitiveness in a global
> economy is symptomatic of a much deeper problem. . .a problem that is not
> easily identified or reconciled.
>
> Here's my theory in a nutshell:
>
> Corporate change was mandated as the economy/job market became deluged
> with the baby boomers.
Ben talks of tremendous frustration for people not able to move up and BPR
to downsize to correct inefficiency, really Baby Boomers.
Here is another theory. The U.S. won WWII and in the process destroyed the
industrial capacity of most of the rest of the world. Hamburg, Germany,
one of the largest industrial centers, was literally leveled with all
factories destroyed. The result was the the U.S. had no foreign
competition and could charge as much as they wanted.
This spawned many inefficiencies. If a union wanted more pay and better
benefits, there was no reason not to pay it since the customer would pay
the increased cost. If taxes increased, they were also just passed on to
consumers. Management levels rose in numbers as did large staffs, neither
of which having a positive effect on the bottom line. All of these
increased costs could be afforded because of there not being much
competition.
How long did it take Germany and Japan to catch up? Bankers can tell you
the answer since they will only lend money based on present assets and
profits, possibly supporting a 10 to 30% annual growth rate. Starting from
zero, it took 30 to 40 years for foreigners to develop sufficient capacity
to threaten U.S. companies. For instance, in 1983 the board of Xerox
decided that they would be totally forced out of business in 5 years. They
decided to find out what the Japanese were doing to be so successful and
found that Xerox had 3 times as many workers and 5 to 6 times as many
staff to produce the same number of copier machines. In the next 5 years,
instead of going out of business, Xerox reduced their costs so that they
could compete with Japanese companies. We all heard about how U.S.
companies could no longer compete, but that really wasn't true. What was
true was that big U.S. companies did not know how to compete.
I do not believe that business people know about the Baby Boomers in their
own businesses. They do know whether they are making or losing sales and
profits. American workers and managers had the benefit of some very fat
years from 1950 to 1980. The correction which ensued is as natural as
death and taxes. People are good and they will respond to new conditions.
In the U.S. we have a new condition and we must adjust to it. BPR was just
one of many, many tools which consultants came up with in order to help
and to continue to command high fees.
Any more theories? Joan
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Joan Pomo The Finest Tools for Managing People
Simonton Associates Based on the book
jpomo@gate.net "How to Unleash the Power of People"
--"jpomo@gate.net" <jpomo@gate.net>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>