Truth

“How much do you really want to know the truth about your company even if the news is bad? How often do you challenge yourself and your colleagues by asking what is the worst plausible reality that could befall your organization? How much freedom of speech do you really encourage? Demand?” Chances are your answers to these questions, posed by Richard S. Tedlow in Denial: Why Business Leaders Fail to Look Facts in the Face—and What to Do About It (Portfolio), although you may be loathe to admit it, are: not much; not often; not much;    none, unless I am trying to impress the boss or someone of the opposite sex with my ostensible act of empowerment.

Although economic factors seem to be improv-ing there are still organizations that are going to cease to be relevant (a.k.a., be long for this world) and there are still people who have yet to become jobless. So what we all really need to do is face up to realities both within our product development organizations as well as beyond the walls (real and virtual) of our companies to get a read on what’s going on Out There. Which then may lead to those questions that are posed in the opening paragraph, assuming that we have the intestinal fortitude to face up to them in a realistic manner. Because to do otherwise, to do any less, is to provide a false sense of security . . . until that is ripped away from our needy grips.

Tedlow’s book includes eye-opening tales of organizations that were once at the tops of their respective games and that somehow managed to become ineffectual or nonexistent. In 1926 Ernest Kanzler, an executive at the Ford Motor Co. and brother-in-law of Edsel Ford, Henry Ford’s only son,
wrote a memo to Henry indicating that the Model T, which had been introduced in 1908 and modi-
fied but not replaced, was losing ground in the market to GM. Kanzler was fired. And GM surged ahead. The U.S. tire industry tried to ignore radial tires in the 1970s, insisting that bias ply tires were the ticket for U.S. drivers. You may vaguely remem-
ber names like “Uniroyal” and “Goodrich”—which were bought by Michelin. Did you ever shop at the
A&P, a grocery chain that seemed all but invulnerable throughout the late 19th and almost three quarters of the 20th centuries? Of it, Tedlow writes, “The A&P was not destroyed by fire. It rusted.” And so on. Venerable names. Ignominious outcomes.

Tedlow offers lessons for those who would prefer not to become irrelevant. Essentially they are:
•    Deal with denial. “Don’t wait for a crisis.”
•    Face facts. Easier said than done: “Advising someone to avoid denial by facing facts is a little like suggesting that someone lose weight by eating less.”
•    Don’t be a “yes man.” Or don’t surround yourself with them. Of course, you could get canned, but . . .
•    Managers should be able to listen to the truth, not to what they want to hear.
•    Take a long-term perspective. Short cuts may get you by today . . . but if you don’t take the long look, failure may be there, waiting.
•    Stop trash-talking the competition. The problem may be you. (E.g., the U.S. tire companies dissed radials as being just good for wimpy Euro cars; they didn’t want to make them.)
•    Tell the truth.
•    Stop holding on to the conventional. That day may be gone.

All too many people are quickly dismissive of those who are trying to find a better way to design and develop products, seeming as though it is but a passing fad by misguided or misinformed individuals. So it’s dissing and dismissing, it is the short-term look and the support of the status quo.
Denial, perhaps?