Good points


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Posted by D Sherman [72.47.9.228] on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 18:17:35 :

In Reply to: "jesus was the bosses son" posted by mannyc [68.165.89.2] on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 12:28:44 :

You see it in the names of the businesses. Most of those companies that were started back around WWII had two things in common. They were started by a man who had seen hard times during the Depression and therefore appreciated his customers, and more often than not, the name of the company was the owner's name. Now the "brand" is just some meaningless word (Hewlett Packard became "Agilent", for example) or if it's a retail brand it's some name that scored well with focus groups. Or they keep the old brand name that had a good reputation (Ingersoll-Rand or Black & Decker) but the actual product is the same cheap junk everybody else is selling. I think when you have your own personal name on the sign or on the box, you tend to feel a little more responsible for your reputation.

It's not just the sons who inherit the place and don't have what the old man had. A lot of times the founder has to sell stock to expand and isn't able to keep a controlling interest in the company any more. As soon as that happens, the stock ana.lysts move in, shove the old man out the door, put their own Harvard MBA guy in charge, and start "enhancing shareholder value". What that means is pretty simple: Cut costs everywhere except on mahogany row, shuffle all the managers around just to show that they can, and make all the workers watch a bunch of stupid videos about the new Quality/MIS/JIT/TQS/Whatever program. Fire the really good engineers because they're strange guys with messy desks who work odd hours, and replace them with contractors from a temp agency that have the right skill codes but don't have a clue how people actually make things and have never listened to a customer. Do not allow customers to talk to engineers but force them all to go through "marketing" where more MBAs run focus groups and write specifications for products that may or may not be what anyone really wants or what manufacturing can actually build. These geniuses usually come out with a conclusion that what "the market" really wants is a product that's just like the competitor's product but is cheaper. That's why they get paid the big bucks. Close down as much in-house manufacturing as possible and ship it all out to job shops or overseas. Do the same with engineering if possible. Hire a really slick book-cooker for Controller who can finagle the shipments and receivables and all the other numbers every quarter so that the CEO can make the "aggressive" numbers he promised the ana.lysts (and on which his bonus is based). Institute an integrated company-wide program of tight security, coded doors, drug testing, security cameras, etc, because, after all, if the company is being run by thieves, the workers are probably thieves too. Make sure to communicate to everyone in the plant that management doesn't trust them and if they so much as steal a pen from the supply cabinet they'll be fired. Ban engineers and machinists from using company equipment to work on home projects after hours. And finally, hire an expensive New York advertising agency and run big glossy ads touting how long the company has been in business, how proud the employees are of their work, what leaders they are in technological innovation, etc. Hire a bunch of actors with nice teeth, put company shirts on them, and have them stand in front of the flashy new corporate office building and smile for the camera.

That's Harvard Business School formula. They do it over and over again. Once they've sucked the old company dry, they sell its "intellectual property" (trade name and patents) on to some big conglomerate like Tyco or Litton and move on to do another one.



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