Thursday, June 09, 2005

Latest Clueless CEO Scam? Healthcare Costs

The Latest Clueless CEO Scam?

CEOs at General Motors and Delta Airlines say: 'If we could just get our workers and retirees to make concessions (pay more or give up contracted benefits) on our healthcare costs, we could be more competitive.'

The whiners are saying that '"so and so" competitor only has $20 of healthcare costs in their cars and we have $125.' Oh woe are we with greedy workers and retirees.

GM is looking at its bottomline and over its shoulder and what does it see? Toyota getting ready to become Number One in North America and Internationally.

Is Toyota's success due to some mythical lower healthcare costs?

Toyota's formula for success is simple:

1. Our job is to get butts in seats - seats of Toyota products.
2. To get butts in seats, Toyota listens to what customers say they want and we give it to them. And their customers say that regardless of which particular product we want, we want a quality product at a reasonable cost.
3. To give their customers quality products at reasonable costs, they continuously focus on improving the quality (effectiveness and efficiency) of the processes used to design and produce their vehicles.
4. To give their customers quality products at reasonable costs, they continuously focus on improving the quality (effectiveness and efficiency) of their workers with training and involvement in improving the quality of their work.

Southwest Airlines uses a similar formula to succeed as an airline -- Some thing that Delta used to do but has forgotten how to do.

The most important part of the success formula?

Your job is to get butts into seats by offfering customers services and products of quality and good value.

Got it?

Or are you too addicted to finding something other than your own cluelessness to blame your woes on?

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Corporate and City Summer Reruns

Re: Cincinnati Teen Homicide, GM, Delta, and Cincinnati Reds Crises

Summer Reruns - Again!
"Press, Leaders and People React"


Have you noticed how hard it seems for people to get a new idea or face the fact that they need to do something really different?

Look at Tuesday's headlines and you begin to get the idea that react means just that re-act, or play the same role or scene again and even though we know the movie will likely have the same ending, we can pretend that this time there will be a different ending.

Teen Turf War Turns Deadly
Press, Leaders, People React
Community meetings, crisis experts walk and talk,
Get Tough, Care More, Why Can't Things Be Like They Used to Be?

GM Loses One Billion, Market Share Still Sliding, 25,000 to Lose Jobs
Press, Leaders, Shareholders React
GM CEO: 'We Have a Plan: Downsize, Control Costs, Get Concessions from Employees and Retirees.'

Delta Chiefs Cite Cost Crisis; May Go Chapter 11 in Fall
Press, Leaders, People React
"We will wrestle with the problem, We Have a Plan: Control Costs, Get Concessions from Employees and Retirees.'

Reds Run Pitiful:
Press, Leaders and Fans React --
Fire Manager, Trade Loyal Team Star, Get Tough, Try Harder, Why Can't Things Be Like They Used to Be?

Cincinnati Ride By Homicide: React. Rerun the crisis movie, quick!
When local homicides shot up to more than 50 a year in 2001 and stayed there, we as a community "decided" to get used to it as if the deaths were like weekly variations in the price of regular gas. Getting a new idea was too hard and facing the fact that something was terribly wrong and needed the whole community's effort was too much for a city used to letting the"experts, the professionals, the business and community leaders" take care of things.

Corporate CEOs in Crisis React Too, or should we say: "Corporate CEOs React II."

Hey folks, you media, government, civic leaders -- the answer is the same to all four problems: Face Facts, You Need a New Way to Get Butts into Seats

Kids, parents, relatives, government and school leaders all need to figure out how to get their respective butts into seats talking and working together until they re-write the script for being a successful young man in Cincinnati today.

GM and Delta may need to control some costs and share the pain but what they really need to do is figure out how to get new and old customers into their "vehicles."

The answer to getting a new idea and approach to winning for the Reds may also be an answer to the Cincinnati homicide crisis, as well as Delta's and GM's profit crisis:

Take advantage of the University of Cincinnati's Re-Action to not being a "classy" campus (they want Basketball Coach Bob Huggins to leave... because he and "his" players, although winners, are not "classy"): Hire Coach Huggins to work with you on how to create a competitive winning strategy based on teamwork, working on achieving your personal best, and recruiting people who want to win.