While I live like “OMG if 'it' doesn’t happen now, 'it' will never happen”, life really doesn’t work that way. Life happens, emerges, operates and occurs along a continuum.
The Big Three showed up in Washington D.C. late last week fully intending, with hands open, to get ‘theirs’. What an incredulous experience then to realize that just showing up doesn’t carry the day. I mean, it certainly did in Field of Dreams. That Kevin Costner just built a damn baseball stadium and next thing you know, cars were lined up in traffic jams from all over the plantetary system to see a bunch of dead players go 9 innings in what-had-been-a wheat field in Kansas. Was it Kansas? (I could Google that, but it’s so much more fun to guess.)
So, showing up isn’t all it takes, right? That’s nice, but what is my point? Ah…the continuum of life and life’s events; back to that.
In 1980, Chrysler was on the verge of bankruptcy. They received a ginormous financial bump from Uncle Sam, kept the same management team in tact, and made not one change to the benefit program or the union contract. What did change? The size of their billfold, for starters. And, product innovation moved to the backseat while the US auto market share decreased from 75% to 48% today.
Why does one “B” word have such appeal and the other leaves us skittish? BAILOUT vs. BANKCRUPCY
Companies have gone into bankrupcy and have survived and thrived while many others have not. Bankruptcy - and the getting through it - demands a certain type of integrity, new thinking, creative dialogs, transformative actions leading to new results, as well as relentless stamina. This rigorous mindset is usually not executed by the folks who are currently running the company. (Chrysler, Ford and GM will need to implement one, if not all, of the above aspects to get some if not all of the allocated $25 billion.)
Fast forward from 1980 to November 2008. After arriving at the nation’s capital in their corporate jets, which was such spicy fodder for the politicians and the media, they got their proverbial balls busted. Showing up produced nothing.
Women-Drivers had our Board meeting on the same exact day last week. Be sure -
all companies,
all workers,
all management and
all levels - need to better craft and draft a compelling story of actionable, accountable results.
Let’s see what happens when the gang gets back together on December 8th. Let the c-o-n-t-i-n-u-u-m continue.
Drive your bargain,
Anne
