- Isso deve ser inconstitucional!
- Mas isso é anticonstitucional!
- Provavelmente não respeita a constituição...
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E recordo logo as palavras de Tainter sobre a derrocada das civilizações...
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Lembrei-me disto tudo a propósito da franqueza crua, nua e dura com que Meg Whitman, CEO da HP, retratou a situação da empresa:
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"She projected that the company would continue its headlong plunge in profits for at least another year—with a full rebound not in sight until 2016. (Moi ici: E seria tão fácil mascarar resultados mais um ano...)
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Whitman liberally mixed metaphors to describe her awakening to just how screwed HP was. "We all hope we can accelerate the timing of this journey, but as I see the challenges up close and personal, there are no silver bullets," she said. "It's going to take longer to right this ship than any of us would like."
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Not all of HP's product lines, or the people who make them, will survive
the "journey" Whitman outlined. There will be some serious pruning of
HP's businesses, and a focus on automating more of manufacturing (and
eliminating workers).
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The "single biggest challenge facing HP," she said, has been the multiple changes in HP's leadership, which caused "inconsistent strategic choices and some significant execution miscues." All that shuffling at the top led to a deficit of actual leadership within the company.
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The lack of central leadership left individual units to figure out things for themselves. The company's marketing? Totally uncoordinated. Its services unit? Directionless from four changes in the top in as many years, and hurting from changes in the sales force. Its products? Too many, too slowly delivered, poorly packaged. Managerial accountability? What's that?
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Apparently people at HP spent so much time changing offices that nobody ever got around to actually measuring what the company did. Whitman said there were no real metrics for measuring performance or providing early warnings, and top management had been essentially flying blind. "I've learned at HP, you don't get what you expect," Whitman said. "You get what you inspect."
The "single biggest challenge facing HP," she said, has been the multiple changes in HP's leadership, which caused "inconsistent strategic choices and some significant execution miscues." All that shuffling at the top led to a deficit of actual leadership within the company.
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The lack of central leadership left individual units to figure out things for themselves. The company's marketing? Totally uncoordinated. Its services unit? Directionless from four changes in the top in as many years, and hurting from changes in the sales force. Its products? Too many, too slowly delivered, poorly packaged. Managerial accountability? What's that?
.
Apparently people at HP spent so much time changing offices that nobody ever got around to actually measuring what the company did. Whitman said there were no real metrics for measuring performance or providing early warnings, and top management had been essentially flying blind. "I've learned at HP, you don't get what you expect," Whitman said. "You get what you inspect."
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Whitman also shared how out of control the company's product lines were
when she arrived a year ago. "When Todd Bradley took over [as executive
vice president of] the Personal Systems Group," she said, "he was
surprised to find that we made over 2,000 types of laser printers."
Whitman said that HP would reduce that number by 20 percent in the next
year (Moi ici: Só 20%... Tão pouco!) —the beginning of a larger product merge and purge aimed at
simplifying the company's logistics and lowering costs."
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Este tipo de conversa só se pode ter uma vez. É a conversa que marca a fronteira entre o antes e o depois, para trás podem ter sido tudo e mais alguma coisa, descarregamos aqui e acabou-se, encerra-se o capítulo, enterra-se e põe-se uma lápide por cima. Ter esta conversa uma vez é positivo, ajuda a fazer a limpeza psicológica que prepara o espírito, para o alterar da perspectiva com que se encara a realidade.
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Recordo um caso em que a cada 3 meses a conversa repetia-se e repetia-se e repetia-se... para desespero de todos.
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Em quantas empresas portuguesas, grandes e pequenas, habituadas a viver do mercado interno não está a ser precisa esta franqueza e a acção consequente? A exuberância da primeira década do século XXI acabou. Quanto mais cedo se reconhecer isso e, consequentemente se preparar um recomeço, para viver e até ter sucesso numa nova realidade, menos capacidade produtiva salvável se perderá.
Trechos retirados de "HP CEO: We're screwed (for the next few years)"
