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To: ballsschweaty who wrote (68622)	9/5/2007 3:52:49 PM
From: koan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Great companies. What about not great companies? Who protects their employees?

To: ballsschweaty who wrote (68622)	9/6/2007 2:15:30 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Lean accounting killed the great company. Here's why: Employ a tool devised for mass producing to percolate to the whole company and it goes out to kill the business. Once no one is making money anymore it is destroyed. This is what has been happening in the business I've been working for the last 36 years telecoms and today mobile companies. One by one destroyed by lean accounting. The last was Siemens telecoms business. For example: Today there are 500 skills set embedded into people who know more about the products and operations but they do not belong to the company. That value of that 500 skills set are not captured in the lean accounting. Therefore that guy is not part of the deal. In quest for leanness you need to lose fat, lean accounting says. But it has lost nerves, muscles and brains along with the fat. How it developed into that? If we apply that conclusion to the business I’m in, every ambitious person, want to go where he thinks the business will provide most of the reward. He targets where the prospects are brighter: finance, marketing, sales. There is where the money is. They don’t go into operations, field service, maintenance That trend started early 80’s. Customer service? Take that thing out of here and send to India, Eastern Europe. Maintenance? Here is some R&D money and go make a product that can be operate by a chimpanzee. Field maintenance? This is arm and legs. Get me ½ dozen Filipino and Indonesians and put them to do that. When you need a guy who tell people how products should be developed and how to take care of legacy systems. He’s not there. There was no money for that. That was considered fat and it was cut. Operation is left for the less ambitious weak and less bright. They are prey to the guys who went to where they have more power and more rewards. Thus they kill operations. Now operations are killing everything, inclusive the business they were leaving off. The pendulum has swung: from an engineering mentality, to a totally accountancy mentality. Now it needs o swing back to find the optimal position. I'm watching, and laughing.