One of those terrifyingly intense and sincere students from a graduate business school asked me the following question :
How many organisations do you know who are :
- committed to doing things better, faster, smarter
- restructuring to get better results from less effort
- reviewing all functions to improve quality control
- really coming to grips with TQM, QA, TQC, CI, ISO9000, xyz, abc....
- flattening the real decision making hierarchy
- downsizing to be leaner and cleaner
- putting everyone on annual or 2-year contracts, individually negotiated
- promoting risk-takers
- supporting risk-takers when they occasionally bomb out
- listening to (not just hearing) the workers at the coalface, the customer interface, the grass roots
- following through on customer feedback
- recognising knowledge and service are the growth products
- revving up on the information superhighway
- moving into the fast lane into Asia?
My answer : oh, about a dozen a week.
Student: What?!? Well, name some Aussie ones.
Before naming names, I said, are you asking which organisations say they are moving into the 21st Century or are you asking which organisations are truly-ruly doing it ?
Student : The companies doing these things right now.
Oh, I said. Let me think for a minute or ten....Uh, there is this tiny hi-tech outfit you probably have never heard of because they are so busy developing and exporting really hot software to interlink major hardware networks throughout Europe and Asia that they don't have time for (or need) publicity or industry pats on the back...
Then there's, um, er, let's see now, uh, of course you know about IBM restructuring to behave like a bunch of small companies ...?
And the automotive industry in Yankeeland and in Japan have had to re-engineer, with outsourcing and cross-production, so now it's ridiculous to identify a car as being `made' in one country ? Okay, okay, so they're not dinky-di.... Um, gosh , there must be some more, I just can't bring any to the frontal lobe at the moment....I'll, ahem, get back to you on that one.
Now let me explain right up front that in spite of the fact that well intentioned friends and concerned kind colleagues insist on pointing out that I sometimes appear to be experimenting rather well with encroaching senility, the above episode is not to be read as a sign of personal RAM failure.
Okay, so YOU immediately come up with local organisations who are already totally living-breathing walking-talking and strutting their new millennium management stuff and not just talking about doing it !
(The next day I sent a fax to the grad student of 8 or 10 local orgs who are out there doing it right. My RAM just needed warming up, that's all.)
The point of this strange little tale is : Talk is surface, action is deep. Talk says maybe, action says decided.
Have you noticed how most of the organisations beating their drums (chests?) about their amazing feats of restructuring etcetera are spending a great ideal time and resources telling us about it ?
Have you also noticed how the little super-hot orgs running to beat the band into new territories with new knowledges and new systems of management are not spending any time and resources telling us about it ? You haven't ??
If you haven't noticed them, that is why. We don't know they even exist! They are too busy doing all the right moves to make a song and dance about it.
Unless we are wise enough to work for, with, or alongside a Twenty-Firster, we rarely discover who they are and what they are achieving.
The lack of publicity is not always self-inflicted. Many of the 21sters I know are not members of the corporate or public sector Old Guard. Almost by definition, they cannot be; if they were, they probably could not be functioning as 21sters.
These Old Guard Jurassics (or Nineteenthers, because they operate on attitudes and values straight out of the industrial revolution. Like, what 20th Century?), are still locked into the mindset of traditional, and previously very successful, ways of managing oneself and the business world.
Unfortunately for them and their employees, suppliers, end-users, and industry colleagues, the business world has zipped along at mega speed while they have been complacently chuffing along at cruising speed.
Yesterday's ocean liner is today's quayside restaurant.
So why am I getting so het up about all this ? Because I love to party. I love to celebrate. I love to feel good.
I will use any excuse, any reason, any cause to whoopee. One of my very favourite things to whoopee about is someone's success. I seek out winners. I search media stories, Netnews, gossip, biz mags, graffiti, anywhere for good news stories about people who are doing it right.
I mostly hear about losers. Bad news sells media; media sells bad news.
How can I party on downers? How can I skip spritely around my 21st C office all excited about the next century if all I hear about are doom-gloom examples of Jurassic nineteenthers?
Now I know you are out there, you daring 21sters. Can you find 2 minutes to let some big mouth (me) know of your daring-do and daring-done exploits ? Phone me (09 384 1402) fax (09 381 1519), I promise to share your story, permission obtained, with people who will also celebrate your wins and feel energised by your example. Or dob in a winner. Let's spread the good stuff.
Personally? You're just what I need - 21st Century party fodder.
So when those earnest enthusiastic students beg for winning examples, I can say : Huzza-huzza, get out the hooters, let's party into the future.
printer friendly versionBUSDIR 5 Mar 1996
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