In the March/April 2024 issue of Car & Driver magazine, Jamie Kitman points out the gains and pains within the current four-wheel EV landscape. Kitman’s Upfront article, Alternating Current provides the painful reality of “piss poor planning” (my words, not his) within the hallowed walls of auto OEs, again. As history seems to always repeat itself, once again the lack of reality has bit auto manufacturers in the ass. When global governments started mandating zero-emissions by 2035, the OEs’ jealousy of Tesla gained unprecedented momentum.
How many business leaders spend hours every week improving their skills and finding new ways to create value? How many would rather spend their time at the bar or on the golf course rather than studying foundational principles to bring their business to the next level? How many decisions are based on guesses, rather than data and talking to customers? How much of day-to-day operations have not changed in the past five years? How many managers just wing it?
These are just some of the foundational issues within organizations. And the modern MBA courses do not help. MBA courses emphasize on finances and archaic tools and techniques that most people never use. You rarely learn about Deming, Imai, Drucker, Ries and Trout, as well as creative and critical thinking in the halls of academia. The skills for the real world, are missing.
In good times you should never blindly follow the herd. But this is even more relevant during bad times. As Albert Einstein famously said, "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result". To develop lasting competitive advantages and provide new, unexpected value for your customers, it is critical to think and act differently from your competitors. You have to reinvent the game.
I just finished reading two great books from Gifford Pinchot III, Intrepreneuring and Intrepeneuring in Action. These books discuss the need for entrepreneurship within large organizations, and why intrapreneurs are critical for an organization’s success. Pinochet coined the term “intrepreneur” to describe an “intracorporate entrepreneur”. What this role is, is an individual whom acts like an entrepreneur but within an organization.
When people talk about Genghis Khan and the Mongols, the discussion typically focuses on the Mongols reputation as a ragtag band of nomadic warriors raping and pillaging across Asia and Europe. The reputation of the Mongols as ferocious killers have spurred countless stories of terror and destruction. Unfortunately, most of these stories were fiction. Interestingly, the Mongols were an amazing propaganda machine and created most of these false narratives to create fear and terror to ensure enemies surrendered before a fight was needed.
Beyond the Mongols legendary success as fearsome warriors, they were also amazing economic innovators. Genghis Khan was the masterful strategist and tactician, who created the Mongol empire. Khubilai Khan, his grandson, was the society builder. Khubilai Khan’s innovations have such direct influence on modern society it is amazing that it happened almost 1,000 years ago.
