In a fictional tale of modern madness, the author of “the Remains of the Day” brought to us “Never let Me Go”.
A famous quote from the school principal (where students were raised and taught to become “donors” since they were genetic copies made from real people to someday called on to offer their body parts as spare parts) about the students’ art projects “We let you experiment – with arts – to see if you had any soul at all”. That line stuck with me, and it dawn on me we have been fed almost that same line since Taylor pressed the On button to start the conveyor belt. Workers’ input are not welcome. Just screw in the bolt. Just do it. (Modern Times, by Chaplin).
Then arrived Taylor 2.0 (Toyota Continuous Improvement) where workers are welcome to stop the conveyor belt should they find something unusual. Hence, the age of empowerment. Workers are now welcome to take part in production and discussion. Third phase is happening, to bring user’s input into the production process (T-shirt design and production).
Companies, like people, have stored up years of experience, we call “know-how”. 3M, Symantec and Adobe are where they are today because of their core competencies. They have created an ecosystem of stake holders who care. Consumers likewise feel safe when purchasing their products. Post-it-notes, packing tapes etc.. from 3M command higher prices than its nearest competitors. The power of brand.
Turn on your TV today, you will see London reasserts its “brand” reputation for 2012 Olympics. Rome also got some share of air time, while Lybian uprising was temporarily forgotten. So was the Midwest tornado. Our attention-deficit economy in a 24-hour news cycle.
Apple got to where it is today because it paid attention to the “soul” part of the electronic experience.
First people wanted something smaller than the mainframe.
Then they want “desk-top publishing”.
Finally, they want to “express” themselves (life-style) with Nike+/Apple I-pod.
When I ran the 8-mile golf course at Penn State, I only had a pair of shoes and shorts.
I thought about the future during those 8 miles (that future is now being lived out), just like Madame Nhu’s pronouncement “I am not afraid of death” back in 1963. She finally had a real encounter with that unknown last Sunday.
Companies like people, stored up millions of memories to act, react and interact with different set of circumstances.
If the person or company stored up many well-learned lessons, they will come out ahead in adversities (e.g. product recalls).
Conversely, negative memories predispose a person or company to repeat that vicious cycle (i.e. patent infringement, disregard for workers’ rights and environment/ethics).
Companies and people also reinvent.
M&A is just an euphemism for erasing bad reputation, or bad numbers .
It’s not even a make-over. It’s a brand salvage.
They just count on public amnesia. To go back to Taylor 1.0 with the conveyor belt. Just Do It. Think not about tomorrow.
Even the company which gave us the tag line “Think” (IBM) now sold off to Lenovo who owns the rights to its Thinkpad.
I am glad we have not only soul, but also memories. Together, they come in handy against weapons of mass distraction. We do remember, some of us. Never let that go.
Thang Nguyen 555 