Roughly a year ago, I profiled five companies that provide great service, for example, Kaiser Permanente and USAA. This post addresses the flip side – the Service Hall of Shame. Today’s inductee is Uber. I have compiled ten reasons for their selection, all experienced in just two days. Let’s start with driver deficiencies. Here are […]
Most organizations and people like to think that everything is under control, proceeding as planned, and the sought outcomes will be realized. If anyone suggests otherwise, they will be chastised for not being team players, perhaps for having bad attitudes, or quite simply for being outright wrong. Unpopular positions are seldom socially acceptable in organizations. […]
It’s a great idea, but can we do it? Can we make it happen? We are going to boil the oceans and then provide everybody gourmet seafood dinners. Ok for those who eat seafood, but how is this going to be accomplished? Making the elements of a solution happen – executing — tends to be […]
Consider two surprises for General Motors (GM) and how they reacted, initially poorly but later quite successively. Both illustrations involved Ford surprising GM. The first led to a major failure and the second to a substantial success. Indeed, failures to achieve corporate objectives are quite common in the automobile industry. Not every vehicle is a […]
There are times when organizations are performing excellently but, despite their confidence, their futures are not bright. Kodak and Polaroid dominated the film and instant photography industries, respectively. My mother inherited a quantity of Kodak stock in the 1930s. It provided generous returns for several decades. People would always seek “Kodak moments” and needed a […]
I began my career as an engineering assistant at Raytheon over 50 years ago. Since then, I have founded and managed five high-tech companies, and held faculty positions at six universities. These experiences led to working with 100+ companies, agencies, foundations, etc. What has changed over the course of this journey? Increased computing power at […]
Unregulated capitalism developed a strategy in the 19th century, if not earlier, of the big players putting the small players out of business, either by acquiring them or cutting prices below which the smaller players could not survive. Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, and Carnegie excelled at this, often financed by JP Morgan. Once the small, possible innovators, […]
Change happens when it is forced. The force can be an opportunity or a threat, perhaps embodied in a crisis. In many domains, the forces for change are manifested as market forces. Competitors, large or small, recognized or unrecognized, are the sources of market forces. Thus, change happens when there is competition to meet market […]
