An alternative view is that executives were mostly doing things they thought – but incorrectly – to be in the best interests of their organizations and their customers [as well as themselves of course].  This hypothesis is supported by the endless positive assessments of corporate prospects by analysts and other well-informed commentators, right up to the moment things went wrong. Surely all those hundreds and thousands of executives could not have hidden dishonest or deceitful behaviour from the outside world for so long?

If they were not being dishonest or unethical, then, were they in fact being insufficiently competent in the strategic management of their organizations. Government grilling of banking executives, for example, has shown that CEOs were doing things that were widely regarded as skilful, even super-clever, that neither they nor most others realised were dumb until after the event. And the banks were not alone in managing themselves into crisis, or at least into serious trouble – we now have car makers, airlines, ship-building, commercial real-estate, retailers and hundreds of other sectors in difficulties they could and should have foreseen and guarded against.

The screen-cast you will find at http://www.strategydynamics.com/strategy-lessons came about because I had reason to reflect on this question for presentations at business schools in Argentina and Brazil over the last 2 weeks.

Good to see the Boston Consulting Group encourage us to focus on the core business (as we should have been doing in the first place), protect product development, look at competitors’ weaknesses etc. – and all with analysis too, rather than gut feel !

Unfortunate, though, that some of the proposals conflict, and some are positively dangerous. “.. begin with aggressive moves to cut costs and increase efficiency … some means of lowering break-even points are obvious: stripping out layers of the organization … consolidating central functions … “.

If you’re in danger of going under, maybe, but I keep coming across companies where everyone is ludicrously flat out and simply failing to get important things done. The strong impression is that many managements are grossly under-staffed, not top-heavy. And what goes out the door when you throw out those “time-wasters”? – the organization’s memory and knowledge of how to do simple, critical things. And those constant reorganizations do the same – in function after function, no-one knows how to do things because none of them have been there more than five minutes.

What you need in present conditions is settled people who really know what they are doing. [Reminds me of the three dimensions of organizational capability - the ability to do critical tasks well, fast, and cheap - see chapter 9 of Strategic Management Dynamics - analyst-driven obsession with doing things cheap does serious damage to doing things well, and fast.]

Then the article repeats that other current fad “Rethink your business model” – almost always wrong and in present conditions a bad distraction from making what you have work really effectively.

There’s some good stuff too though, so take a look – but with brain engaged!

Anyone experienced similar this time round?