The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

By that, I mean they built a business to success, rather than optimized it through short-cuts and re-orgs.

He’s pretty scathing towards the way many modern CEO’s run their business, especially those who have been ‘dropped in’ rather than built it themselves … thinking they’re both selfish [ie: doing things for their short-term gain, not the long-term benefit of the company they lead] as well as egotistical in belief they’re better than everyone around them and so everyone around them is disposable.

He’s always had the view you judge the quality of a CEO over decades, rather than financial quarters … but he also accepts those days have pretty much gone given too many CEO’s work for the needs of the market rather than their customers.

And it was here he said something that really hit me:

“When companies can only drive growth through ‘re-orgs, consolidation or buy-to-kill takeovers’ … they’re operating a Ponzi scheme more than a business plan”.

It reminded me of something I wrote about ages ago, when Frank Oz – film director, voice of Yoda and countless muppets and expert puppeteer – talked about how he felt Disney had completely failed to appreciate what they’d bought when they acquired Star Wars because it was negotiated by money men rather than artists and as such, would end up being a more superficial … less crafted … less influential … more commercialized expression of the Star Wars story and world.

Or said another way: They would ruin the very thing that made them want to spend billions on it in the first place.

Is he wrong?

Probably not … especially as some say their ‘strategy’ after acquisition was to churn out as much as possible in as short a time as possible so the market can be flooded with all manner of stuff so they can profit as quickly as possible from the hunger and good will of fans before they stop, step back and say, “what is this shit?”.

And if that isn’t scary enough, let’s remember this is coming from Disney who – whether you like them or not – are at least built on being a creative company who appreciates the importance of craft, emotion and story. So imagine what other companies are like where they don’t share any values beyond wanting to exploit as much cash as possible with as much outsourcing as possible.

Which all leads to a question the CEO I interviewed replied with, “Exactly!”.

“What happens when the CEO’s who are obsessed with outsourcing, optimizing, reorganizing discover they have no one else they can buy, fire or kill?

Or, even more terrifying [for them] … sell to?”