Top Mistakes of American Business

American business is in the trouble it is because of some basic philosophical errors. These errors permeate American companies and are wholeheartedly believed by top executives. Unfortunately, they have led to the spectacles we are currently observing on CNN every night. Here are some of the top philosophical errors.

1). Being totally “bottom line” oriented. American businesses look to make a profit, regardless. Regardless of what? Regardless of anything else, including ethics, morality, quality, customer service or the view of the public. While profit is important, so are many other values.

2). “Quarterly thinking.” Too many companies are focused on quarterly results. This keeps American companies from carrying out any long-term strategic plans which might cause a quarter or two of lowered earnings. This is very short-sighted, and few other nations have our peculiar view of things.

3). A belief that executives are special people. American media has lionized the executive. When once young people aspired to be a minister, a reporter, a doctor, or whatever, they now aspire to be a CEO. Having been a CEO I can tell you that CEOs are nobody special. It really isn’t that difficult of a job when you get down to it. It does require special talent and some brains. But there are many more difficult jobs in the world that should be paid much higher than a CEO. Like being a middle school teacher (horrors!).

4). Crass materialism. Our nation has made the Almighty Dollar into its main god. The results of this absurd idolatry are everywhere, and often end in “perp walks.” The worship of money and stuff by Americans has really gotten out of hand.

5). Gross disparity of pay. “Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.” The gross and growing disparity of pay between executives and the company average worker’s salary is very dangerous, and will, sooner or later, result either in draconian legislation or revolution or both. If executives don’t start to police themselves, very bad things are going to happen very soon. President Obama’s election is a beginning of a sea change in American business. Those businesses who “don’t get it” are going to be out of business pretty rapidly. Better learn now.

6). Arrogance. The arrogance of the Big Three Executives flying for a hearing in Washington on getting bail-out money each on their own private jet, and indicating that their absurdly high salaries were “about right” is an example of the extreme arrogance in America’s executive suites. This really, really makes people very angry. Frankly, I wouldn’t buy an American car if you paid me to buy one. These guys completely disgust me, and I won’t give them my business.

7). Lousy customer service. Just about every American company has customer DISservice, not customer service. Rather than making things easier for their customers, American companies are making things more difficult for their customers. Long phone wait times, endless computer loops, draconian return policies, the powerlessness of the lower-level functionaries to do anything and the absurd difficulty in reaching a supervisor are all symptoms of a system out of control. And don’t even get me started on the worst of the worst…the airlines. Many American companies, frankly, deserve to go out of business and, in a true free market economy, they would have. We need a true free market economy so that companies will be forced to be responsive to customers rather than forcing customers, otherwise known as “taxpayers,” to bail them out…the very customers to whom they are incredibly rude. This is adding insult to injury, and I don’t like it one little bit.

8). Shoddy product. In addition to lousy attitudes, American companies are producing shoddy products. It seems that every American product I buy falls apart. I’d love to buy American…if I could count on the product. As it is, I’ve got to look after myself, not some union worker…which brings me to…

9). Trade Unions. Unions are dinosaurs that should roll over and finish dying. The philosophy of both protectionism and overpayment of workers has had its time. Unions are one very big reason why America is in the mess it is in. We overpaid and protected shoddy workers while other countries were kicking our butts on quality and price. The right of employers to fire someone who is not producing should be absolute and not interfered with, either by the ($#$#_%) government or “collective bargaining.” The Unions had their day and their place. That is over. Now they simply protect incompetence and add billions of dollars of useless cost to American products.

10). Turf. Perhaps one of the largest causes of failures in American business is the concept of “turf.” Each executive is permitted to carve out an empire for him or herself, rather than being forced to work as a team, as in Asia. This has led to incredible redundancy and inefficiency in American businesses, as the very large egos of top executives are stroked by their buddies in the boardroom. And this is another example of turf. Boards are supposed to be independent representatives of the true owners of the company, the stockholders. Instead they are, all too often, rubber stamps for management. While this has changed somewhat with SarbOx, it hasn’t changed much. The closeness of boards to “C” Level executives is almost the definition of “conflict of interest.”

These are just a few of the mistakes made by American business. There are many more that we’ll visit at another time.

Welcome!

Welcome to the CEO Skills Corner. This new blog will exclusively address the skills and concerns of "C" Level executives in corporate America.

This blog will receive new articles at least weekly on a variety of topics. Of course, I always welcome your questions and comments, and will do my best to address them either personally or in an article. If you're asking a question, it is likely that many of your colleagues have a similar concern.

Who am I and why should you spend the time reading my articles? For the first post, here is my bio.

John Heckers, MA, CPC, BCPC is President of Heckers Development Group, LTD, an executive coaching and consulting firm based in Cherry Creek, Colorado, specializing in high level Executive Coaching, Corporate Training, Executive Transition Consulting and Strategic Corporate Coaching. John has consulted to both Fortune 500 and smaller companies, and has trained and coached executives from AT&T, New Horizons Computer Learning Centers, Microsoft Corporation, IBM, Maxtor/Seagate, The Prudential, United Airlines, Children’s Hospital, Concentra Health Systems, Merck-Medco, Hewlett/Packard, Citibank of New York, Corporate Express, Stryker Corporation, Qwest, First Data Resources, FEMA, The United States Armed Forces, and many other organizations. John has over 28 years of experience in helping and counseling executives, professional counseling, executive transition (career) counseling and professional training.

John Heckers is published both nationally and internationally as a business columnist, is featured as an employment blogger for ColoradoBiz Magazine Today on-line, on the Jobing.com website (Jobing.com is a national job board and employment advisory website), has served as an employment expert on the Diversity Website Latpro and served as the internationally syndicated employment columnist for The Denver Business Journal and the national and international online bizjournals.com for over 6 years. His articles have been syndicated in business journals across the United States and Canada, and has also had his articles republished in business periodicals in Europe and Asia, translated into five languages. He has had frequent appearances on numerous television news programs and radio talk shows as an employment expert, including Denver’s KCNC, WB2, and KHOW radio, among others.

John Heckers graduated with his Baccalaureate degree in Psychology and Philosophy from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1977, did graduate studies at the University of Toronto, Trinity College, in 1978 and 1979, and graduated from Denver’s Iliff School of Theology with distinction with his Master of Arts degree in 1989.

He is past president of the Colorado Association of Psychotherapists, served on the boards of directors of the Jefferson Center for Mental Health, the Rocky Mountain Information Management Association, and the International Attention and Behavioral Institute. In 1995, Heckers was appointed by Governor Roy Romer to the Colorado State Mental Health Grievance Board, where he served for three years. He also has served as a Senior Research Fellow for the Magellan Center, a non-partisan and not-for-profit think tank in Colorado devoted to employment issues.

So, there you have it. You may expect a new post on this blog in the next couple of days. If you’d like to know whenever we update, don’t forget to subscribe via the link on the sidebar.

Thanks, and I look forward to having you as a regular reader.

John H. Heckers, MA, CPC, BCPC