The Eyesight of an Eagle and the Vision of a Clam

Today's headlines of Ford's violent thrashing and gasping to cope with slumping sales saddens me. It's not news, but business as usual.

While I have no love for planned obsolescence in engineering, Ford and all their Tier1's are fellow countrymen. I feel coming tensions in their marriages, see the faces of their pained children, and watch the encroaching reality of foreclosures, just because the dingleberries in management can't get it right.

I think back on my own experiences working in Asia, and wish others could see what I saw.

Let me explain...

"Tom" Tsutomu Narita of the huge international electronics company, Omron Corporation, hired me to work in Japan in 1980s. A young engineer fresh out of Brigham Young University, I had no real idea of the fortunes that lay ahead. Yes, riches and fame and success et cetera came my way during the next decade, but far more valuable were simple lessons of humanity in business. Lessons drawn from something as simple and as deep as not wantonly crushing the ant that walks past just because 'you can.'

For example, Omron experienced extremely hard times in the mid- and late 1980s. The worldwide depression downturns lasted for years. My western experience told me to worry about being laid off. Omron still sold around US$1Billion annually, but profit margins ranged from 1% to 3% for many heart-stopping quarters.

But President Yoshio Tateishi (also written Tateisi) with founder and aged Chairman Kazuma Tateishi stated that "ALL would stay– workers were as family. As the company fared, so would all," they said.

So I became part of an astounding show of support.

When 25,000+ workers in 40 factories around the world making over 100,000 electronic products showed their sincere appreciation by putting 'shoulders to the wheel’ with voluntary overtime, extra-mile service, ZERO defects (not a concept-- a reality), and even sometimes foregone paychecks, Omron prospered, becoming the 10th to 15th largest company in Japan.

Oh yes, we invested– gladly– to support the leaders who similarly cared for us.

Smirk all you like, but it happened because we felt loved, wanted, and valued... and somewhat secure. Times were rough but virtually no one was cut. And so everyone worked smarter AND harder, and results arrived.

Back to Ford for a moment longer: For those mis-trained in western ways of quarterly profits, easy layoffs, middle-management house-cleaning (and the idiotic practice of asking high-school-grade dimwits to run HR), all I can say is companies reap what they sow. In business, Ford's laughable 'Bold Moves' show that Americans often have the eyesight of an eagle and the vision of a clam. It's not about CARS, people, it's about PEOPLE, people.

The lesson is this: “Human Resources” isn’t a euphemism.

Tom Narita showed how to treat employees right, and I wish we'd dare make such bold moves in our culture.

Cheers