Flat is the new up
“Flat is the new up.”
I heard that tonight when a friend and I attended a business lecture at UCLA by Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham, co-authors of the terrific new book “The Knack.” Where did they hear it? From entrepreneurs at the recent Inc. 500 conference.
In other words, forget growing during this economy; if you’re able to stay flat, you’re ahead.
Which makes me think of news I read on my iPhone while I was waiting for the lecture to start: Evidently, Congress is balking at even discussing a bailout for Detroit auto manufacturers. For GM in particular, “flat” will mean death — they’ve had so much shrinkage they’ve been underwater for decades. On top of that, the other day I heard this statistic: GM has 20% of auto sales in the U.S., and Toyota has 20% of auto sales in the U.S. GM has 7000 dealerships; Toyota has 1500. GM has all the operational efficiency of an overstuffed jelly donut.
Even with the estimated 2.5 million jobs to be lost, it’s tempting indeed to let them go out of business. (Or declare bankruptcy, learn from their lesson, and see if they can become profitable in a reorganization — and perhaps learn how to sell a car at the same time.)
November 20th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
One of the arguments being made in defense of bailing out the US auto companies is that we need them in time of war to convert to making military vehicles. I’ve heard this several times already on TV. And so on.
November 30th, 2008 at 7:54 am
The problem is that at these levels, even a bankruptcy is a bailout, and the only reason they haven’t done that yet is that the upper mgt. is still in the pantry grabbing the last of the overstuffed jelly donuts. Period.