2009-03-07

Good Day Everyone,

The doomsayers keep spinning their web based on “reality”.

The latest figures state that over 4.4 million jobs have been lost and that the unemployment figures are at 8.1%. May I point out that this means 91.9% of Americans are still employed!

In an article in today’s New York Times, journalists Peter Goodman and Jack Healy point out that a vast remaking of the United States economy is underway. Finally!

The way we have done business in American obviously hasn‘t work. It has been based on the fear of lack. This ubiquitous belief has propelled banks and others to conduct business often in less than ethical or healthy practices.

Think about this for just a minute. When you’re afraid there’s not enough for you, what does your human mind do with this information? It begins scheming and conniving, right? The prevailing belief in American business has been that bigger is always better. It doesn’t consider that the quality of the growth is of any consequence.

Years ago I had a professor at Cornell who was showing us the “life cycle” of a business. The business is born, it grows, it levels off. Then, at this point, it has to grow again. Here’s the critical point: unless it changes this growth cannot be accomplished. The change required at that point is something NEW and innovative, a better version of what has come before it. In the hospitality sector, this meant proliferating more franchise products, so that now all we see at every freeway off ramp is a saturation of the same products and not a whole lot of unique choices. Everyone took their competitive marketing cue from the others, basically resulting in a lot of the same. It was a whole lot more fun and interesting (quality) to travel by car 40 years ago when the choices for food and lodging were offered by independents from the local region.

Another strategy for growing a company after the leveling-off stage has been merging and acquiring. Giant conglomerates have emerge from this strategy like Phillip Morris. This doesn’t mean that the company improved, changed, or re-made itself, it just means that “on the books” it grew in dollars earned often acquiring companies within industries in which they had no expertise. Much like the American consumer just buying more stuff.

Business is a place where innovation can and should be rewarded. However, the American thinking of investors has been just to make money by whatever means – in short, the idea of quality and innovation was thrown to the wayside for profit taking by parting out companies and/or betting. The stock market is now less the arena for supporting new businesses and ideas than it is a commonplace craps table.

We can have methods for evaluating a company, but without regard and respect for the inherent “quality” of a company factored in, the products and services, ideas and research that drive a company are not in the calculations. This is basically equivalent to no one saying, “Ah, excuse me, the Emperor is naked.”

Take the American car companies, for example. All are ‘victim’ of lackful thinking /or group think. This is how business is always done. Over the past decade when other car manufacturers such as Honda and Toyota were putting out cars that lasted more than a decade and met fuel efficiency standards ahead of schedule, the American car companies were still creating gas hogs that self-destructed at less than 100,000 miles.

Natural Law on Earth is either change or go extinct. The American car manufacturers are nearly extinct; we will watch to see if the US Government can support them while they try to catch up.

Mother Nature is not that accommodating. If a species cannot adapt, it dies.

Adaptation or change has to be built into the system of corporate evaluation. Indeed, the NYT journalists are right on target. A vast remaking of our economy must be underway, or we will perish. It’s Natural Law.

The American people and our thinking over the last 100 years have traveled a path so far away from Nature, that we no longer even consider Natural Law when we are working on a business plan. It’s about the money. Oddly enough, if we operate according to Natural Law where only Quality gets to exist, the money would flood in beyond our wildest dreams. Human mind thoughts based in lack and fear work counterproductive to the Laws of Nature, and therefore, are not sustainable.

We humans are Natural creatures subject to the Laws of Nature just as every flower, animal and cell are. Our creations are subject to Natural Law, as well. And Quality is the name of Her game.

What does this mean to you, the individual? It means you are subject to the Laws of Nature, as well. You must change and adapt or go extinct, as well. What holds you back from changing yourself into something more and better than the previous version of you? It’s probably fear, just as fear of not enough led to this economic collapse. Indeed, it is time and the time is ripe for
creating a new economy based on Quality and Plenty.

As Anis Nin said, “There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

It’s time for America, and each individual citizen, to bloom.

Thanks for reading!

Kath