As I settle in to write this, I’m clueless what the outcome
of the infamous $700 billion bailout will (or even should) be other than to say
that I find our current fiscal situation confusing. Ten minutes ago, the House
of Representatives voted down the plan, but I doubt that’s the end of the road.
It’s bad enough trying to imagine just how the keepers of the
most powerful and diverse economy in the history of the planet presumably awoke
one morning to find that things had turned to worms. Worse still, I have
difficulty accepting the notion that baling out these same wizards is what’s
needed to save the world from economic chaos. But worst of all is my inability
to come to grips with the concept of $700 billion much less the rationale
underlying the boys’ determination that it is amount on which our salvation
depends?
Well, let’s see what we have here.
Put into terms your computer is comfortable dealing
with—nanoseconds--700 billion equates to the number of separate activities the
random access memory of your desktop can perform in the next 12-or-so minutes.
Cast in more human scales, 700 billion minutes ago (1.3 million BCE will get you
in the ballpark), our ancestors were mastering their stone-age skills to compete
for hunting rights with the likes of distant cousins and saber tooth tigers.
If you were start right now slapping down one Ben Franklin
each and every second without a break you could expect to finish the task
sometime in August, 2262. If you just emerged from the womb today (September 29,
2008), you face the prospect of being responsible to something in the
neighborhood of $2300, on top of all the other obligations your predecessors
have allowed you to assume in your prior state…and therein lies the rub. When do
our descendents get to put their two cents in about how much debt we’re willing
to saddle them with?
“It’s the bankers and the brokers, and people in high places
who have done this to us,” you say, but is it? This Us versus Them
mentality may make us feel holy, but how accurate is this vision? More to the
point, how does it help us weather the situation and move on?
Lean Thinking
Both as individuals and business people we are obliged to
turn the microscope on our own practices to see how suited they are to meeting
what might best be described as “a whole new ballgame.”
If you recall your history lessons of the period following
the end of World War I, you’ll find parallels to the forces that have brought us
to our present pass. During the 1930s, keeping the doors open for many
businesses meant harvesting the floor for scraps to put back into use, so what
we’re facing today in making up for past excesses is neither new nor beyond our
ability to respond effectively.
I had the opportunity, last month, of visiting the Vermeer
company’s plant in Pella, IA [I could detail a similar focus in other companies
I’ve visited in the past year, but this happens to be closest at hand],,
witnessing at first hand an enterprise founded on lean operating principles.
Now, in the midst stunning success, rather than resting on its laurels, the
company was dedicated to squeezing every last vestige of fat from its processes,
but even there what is most revealing is not so much the steps that are being
taken, but the thought and effort behind them. Anything—be it activity, machine,
system, or inventory item-- is vetted and discarded if not directly involved the
company’s core business. The process, while ruthless, seems to me to be a
cornerstone of Vermeer’s success.
If you agree that it is as I’ve suggested a new ballgame, I’d
like to know what you’re doing to win it?