January 2007 - Unfinished Business Done With

By Anthony J. Lockwood

It’s standard operating procedure for columnists to make predictions about the year ahead in their last column of the year or first column of the New Year. I’ll spare you the Nostradamus act. I don’t know what lunch has in store for me, never mind 2007. My only prediction is that, should it rain in the morning, it will be dark by midnight, except in polar regions at certain times of 2007.

What I do have for you are scraps of ‘06 columns that I never finished because I’m easily distracted and they proved difficult to uncork. So, here are a bunch of miscellaneous rants, organized by keyword, that I never got to in the old year.

Innovation—If one word sums up the refrain sung by the Stepford pundits of the pop-culture business press in 2006, it is innovation. Every harrumphing blab-a-lot on CNBC and author of yet another management self-help book preening in an op ed piece for the Wall Street Journal seemed to have innovation on the brain. This infected legions of middle managers, upper middle managers, lower upper managers, CEOs, and the like who then issued e-memos or assembled the do-bees to, Moses-like, pass down the wisdom: “We are now an Innovation company.”

Lockwood, Editorial Director

Yee-haw! Problem is, the only innovations most can muster concern cashing in stock options and using the word innovation a lot. They don’t understand that if you want innovation, first you purge yourself of circa-1970 business tactics and then dump more on your A Team. The A Team? Exactly; already overwhelmed. And if you need that idea dissected, you are not ready to lead an Innovation company.

Executive Pay—Why do these people get a raise when the company and stock perform badly, and you get laid off? Why do these people get a raise when the company and the stock perform well as you get a cut in benefits? Why’s it an American tragedy when someone like Jeff Skilling goes to jail for his role in the Enron bust, but it’s just business when 5,000 Enron employees lose their shirts?

Automotive—How come ’Mericans can build terrific German, Japanese, and Korean cars but not our own? It’s getting like basketball. You know, all them foreigners are beating us at our game.

Innovators & the Big D—Watch for a growing scandal involving the Coast Guard, major military contractors, and your tax dollars. The short of it is that the Coast Guard outsourced the management, design, implementation, and oversight of a total overhaul of the Coast Guard's maritime and aerial assets so that it could better serve as our frontline defense. Leave it to the magic of innovators to get us the best military hardware at the best price. Called Deepwater, the program is in deep do-do. Already $7 billion over the original $17 billion price tag, the overhauled and new Coast Guard vessels are not seaworthy and they haven’t gotten to the other stuff. Well, they got to the smallcraft radios, only they’re not waterproof.

The Guard’s engineers tried to warn their brass that the engineering was no good before the money hemorrhaged. But who listens to cranky old engineers? Real innovators. That’s who. So, keep on keeping on in ‘07. My dream is they’ll listen.

Thanks, Pal.—Lockwood

Lockwood is Anthony J. Lockwood is the Editorial Director of DE Magazine. His family crest says "Surpisingly Mannerly," but that refers to his ancestors. You can send Lockwood an e-mail by clicking here. Please reference "Diatribes, January 2007" in your message.