- Millennium
Marketing Research®
- Tom Schori DBA Millennium Marketing Research®, 808 Ironwood, Normal IL 61761, 309-532-8466
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Wanted: more, kinder and gentler, 'chain saw Al's.'By Thomas R. Schori, Ph.D., and Michael L. Garee, Principals, Millennium Marketing Research, 808 E. Ironwood, Normal, IL 61761-5239. Tel. 309-532-8466 - It’s relatively easy to look at a famous (or infamous, depending upon your point of view) "corporate fixer" like "Chain saw" Al Dunlap, currently chief executive officer of Sunbeam Corporation, and be hypercritical. After all, he first destroys companies before he even begins to fix them, or so his critics contend. But, maybe, just maybe, what American business really needs is not fewer "Chain saw" Al’s, but rather, more of them, or at least a scaled down version of them! Notwithstanding the fact that the West Point graduate and former U.S. Army paratrooper is a sometimes abrasive, "take no prisoners" type of manager, it cannot be denied that he produces the results for which he was hired. He proved that at Scott Paper Co., and he just recently proved it again at Sunbeam, which was definitely going down for the count before he arrived. You may not like his methods¾and it appears that many in American business do not!¾but it appears that you certainly can’t argue with the end result. Rather than to sustain the constant barrage of criticism about Mr. Dunlap and his "rescue" methods, it seems to us that the more pertinent question to be asked is this: How do some of our major companies allow themselves to get to the brink of disaster, when it then becomes necessary to enlist the services of a "Chain saw" Al? We think we know the answer to that question, and it’s likely that a majority of our readers do as well. Companies, particularly BIG companies, like people, can easily become complacent as the result of years and years of success, limited though that success might be. Through inertia, or mere laziness, it’s easy to ignore warning signs that something might be amiss in the business. It’s easy for management, and the boards of directors charged with overseeing them, to become both isolated and insulated from the "real" world, and many do. It’s easy to assume that because a company has been successful for so very long that it will always be successful. These ingredients and others are what can bring a company to the brink of disaster and require the services of a "Chain saw" Al. When Mr. Dunlap was called to "rescue" Sunbeam, he followed essentially the same course of action he had followed in the past with other failing companies. He brutally and immediately cut operating costs by cutting payroll. (In the case of Sunbeam, for example, he cut the employee force in half, going from 12,000 to 6,000 workers in a relatively short period of time.) He consolidated redundant operations within the business. He eliminated products that were no longer paying their own way. He sowed immense fear in the executive suite, warning everyone still there that there was no way any of them would be able to "hide" from him. He told each of them they would have to prove why they should be allowed to remain at the company, since, obviously, some of them were directly responsible for the sad condition to which the once great company had degenerated. Of course no one enjoys being on the receiving end of such fear and anxiety. The lives of 6,000 people and their families were forever changed. Careers were ruined. But why? Because of Mr. Dunlap? No, because of the gross negligence of the company’s previous management. It was they who destroyed Sunbeam; Mr. Dunlap was merely charged with salvaging what remained salvageable. Unfortunately, there are quite a number of U.S. companies, large, medium and small, in a wide variety of industries, that are currently in (or soon will be in) the sorry state that Sunbeam was in when Mr. Dunlap was asked to take over. Most of these other companies are in this sad, sad state for principally the same reasons attributable to Sunbeam: sloppy management, a lackluster product line, a bloated, ineffectual workforce, etc. For these companies, however, there will be no "Chain saw" Al to help rescue them. They will simply die, either with a "bang" or a "whimper," but certainly they will die. The only way they can avoid dying is to mend their ways, and mend them fast. All of this brings us to ask one final question: How badly would American business need the services of a "Chain saw" Al if most businesses were currently being run by a "kinder and gentler" version of a "Chain saw" Al. That is, what if more Chief Executive Officers were diligent, up front, about keeping the workforce at an optimal level, their product line streamlined, their operating costs in line, their competitive edge sharp? If they did, there wouldn’t be much of a need for a "rescue" artist like Al Dunlap, would there? We think not.
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