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‘Getting Stuff’ vs. Creating a Culture of Excellence
For some people, life is about obtaining one square mile of pure gold and consequently being able to purchase anything (or anyone) you want.
For others, it’s about getting into the room with the big, shiny buttons — you know, the room where you make all the important decisions, where you have all the power, and you get all the glory. You, you, and more you!
It’s a free world and people can desire all kinds of things. I’m not here to crush anyone’s dream. If one of the above motivates you to reach for the stars, then good on you. More power to you!
But shouldn’t a person’s life be about something more high-minded than ‘getting all the stuff’ or ‘owning the power suite’?
The corporate world brings clarity to this question because corporate data is so carefully scrutinized, extrapolated, debated, gamed and summarized.
Therefore, we can use them to demonstrate various examples of ‘cultures of excellence’.
Some companies stand out for ‘all the right reasons’ while others stand out for ‘all the wrong reasons’
Ford Motor Company stands out for bringing affordable transportation to the masses in the form of it’s Model T Ford beginning in 1908 — and thereby, almost single-handedly creating the American middle class — at a time when there existed in the USA only a tiny ‘wealthy class’ of American aristocrats and the huge and mostly poverty-stricken American ‘working class’.
At least, until Henry Ford began paying his workers enough so that they could afford to purchase the cars his company manufactured.
Suddenly, it was a different America as other manufacturers were forced to match Ford’s wages.
Henry Ford’s dream to pay his workers well enough so they could purchase the cars they built was revolutionary at the time. Yet, the American economy, with it’s first in the world large middle class, set the domestic economic policy standard for the world since the first Model T rolled off the first in the world process-based, modern manufacturing production line, staffed by his first in the world well-paid workforce.
When economists consider the history of Ford Motor Company, they think of ‘innovation’. That’s product innovation, market innovation and employee remuneration innovation.
Volkswagen: The Case for Continuous Product Improvement
In Volkswagen’s case, the first VW ‘People’s Car’ or, as we know it, the Volkswagen ‘Beetle’ economy car, was mass produced from 1945 through 2003 — selling 21,529,464 Beetles over 58-years.
While the VW Beetle began as a very humble car, and not completely reliable, continuous improvements were added to the platform every year until it became a desirable car with a reputation for excellent reliability. In the last years of production, the Beetle employed the latest technologies — including components manufactured by Volkswagen’s own Porsche division.
Not only did the car improve over the decades, but VW designers and engineers changed the very nature of the car from an entry-level car (then available at an astonishingly low price) to a fun, sporty vehicle with it’s own vibe and cult following.
To this day, it’s impossible to get a negative comment from a former VW Beetle owner about Das Volksauto (the people’s car).
When marketing experts consider the history of Volkswagen, they think of ‘value’ — product value, ownership value and the value to the company of taking a basic product and moving it upmarket via constant improvements.
Why Land Rover Succeeds
Most Land Rover owners will never need to cross the Australian Outback, traverse the Gobi Desert, or scale steep and snowy mountains (sans roads) in Alaska. In fact, most won’t drive their Land Rover anywhere but on paved roads in their own country.
But isn’t it nice to know that you could if you wanted to?
That feeling of capability, of near-invincibility, and doing all of it with ease and panache, makes the high purchase price of a Land Rover worth every pence to some. We know who you are. You’re the rugged, self-made individual who will go where he/she wants, anytime he/she wants — and snow, rockslides, creeks, steep hillsides, outrageously hot or cold weather, or other obstacles, won’t be tolerated.
Nobody really needs this car, other than the Army. But it remains one of the most-desired vehicles in the world. How can this be?
Similarly, no one really needs a McLaren or Lamborghini. But the value proposition in the purchaser’s mind is what sells the car. It’s not about logic. It’s about how the car makes me feel! It’s about the engineering prowess. It’s about what it can do, if I let it!
Chalk this example of excellence up to brilliant marketing minds mastering human psychology and giving them what they want. How profound. ‘Give them what they want and they will buy it!’ — works every time.
The Difference between Wealth Accumulation / Power Accumulation, and a Culture of Excellence
However, in contrast to every Ford Motor Company, Volkswagen AG, Jaguar Land Rover, or other highly-ranked company, there are a number of ENRON’s and other companies that I won’t name (for legal reasons).
I can’t state categorically that every company that succeeds is an organization based upon the culture of excellence model. But along with this correlation must come a certain amount of causality.
Sure, some truly excellent products manufactured by excellent companies have failed. (Bad market timing, sudden recession, change in consumer preferences). And some truly terrible products/services/companies have succeeded. (Inexplicably)
But mostly, companies with a culture of excellence at heart, succeed and do so spectacularly. Names like Michelin, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Apple, Lexus, Radisson, Rolex, Levi Strauss & Co. and others succeeded because they FIRST created a culture of excellence among their workforce/investors/customers AND THEN began manufacturing their products or offering their service and selling in the global marketplace.
Had they chosen to create a culture of wealth accumulation (or power accumulation) FIRST among their workforce/investors/customers, they wouldn’t have succeeded and the world would’ve never benefitted from their products/service and example.
And these must be the questions for Britons in the 21st-Century:
What kind of country do Britons want to live in over the next 76-years?
Do Britons want to be a country that only cares about wealth accumulation by any means? (Forget the environment! etc.)
Do the people want a country that only cares about accumulating evermore political power and GDP and use it to control other countries? (Regime change, anon)
Do citizens see the value of creating a culture of excellence centred around (a product, service, governance, etc) FIRST, and ONLY THEN beginning to manufacture a product or deliver a service, or create informed policies, and thenceforth keeping that high standard of excellence for the life of that organization?
Do ethics matter?
Does curtailing or outright banning of non-ethical investing improve the UK’s brand?
Is it right that a wealthy country of 69-million people tolerates an average rating on the UN Happiness Index, or an average ranking on the Social Progress Imperative ranking, or only slightly better than average Corruption Perceptions Index ranking?
Is the country that created the first and best universal healthcare system in the world doing well enough for it’s patients — falling from it’s normal 1st-place rank to 4th-place in 2021? (Read: “Mirror, Mirror 2021: Reflecting Poorly” published by The Commonwealth Fund)
Is it acceptable that UK GDP has fallen from it’s 5th-place ranking to 8th-place since 2000?
These, and many other questions need to be asked, researched and discussed. And in a spirit of mutual problem-solving, all stakeholders and policymakers must work together to facilitate solutions by re-adding the very necessary and time-tested component we call the culture of excellence — which, once upon a time embodied almost every UK company and institution.
UK Economy: Signs of Hope or Doom?
Like many Western nations, the UK economy remained resilient through the worst of COVID when many workers were ill or otherwise sequestered in their homes, unable to work due to various lockdowns. The lockdowns seemed a wise precaution for the times — even though Britons disliked being forced to stay in their homes for weeks or months.
But just as COVID has relaxed it’s hold on our lives, it suddenly occurs that Western economies begin to underperform…
Some days you just can’t win.
New UK Prime Minister Liz Truss and New Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng Ordered Tax Cuts for Wealthy Britons
Which, if you know British politics, is standard operating procedure for Conservative-led governments. No matter the economic ailment, it seems that the de rigueur prescription is tax cuts for the rich.
On balance, that prescription boasts a decent success rate. Over the past 122-years, various UK governments have imposed tax cuts to stimulate the economy and it’s worked more than not. However, there’ve been times when it hasn’t worked, and this is one of those times.
“Always worth a try?”
I guess. But when tax rates for the wealthy are already low, further tax cuts don’t impress the wealthy, nor increase government tax revenue, nor stimulate the UK economy.
And this is the problem… politicians don’t understand economics well (nor do they understand military matters, but that’s a story for another day) but by taking some sage advice to heart, new Prime Minister Liz Truss could still salvage an economic win out of a (forgivable) misstep early in her premiership.
It’s early days, and no doubt, they’re feeling the pressure to act. The PM and Chancellor tried to improve the economy and their first attempt failed.
No worries, there’s a window of time to get it right. But not too much time, or any remedy they apply will arrive too late to have a meaningful effect. And that could cost the Conservatives at the next election.
Their Second Attempt to Help the Economy: Printing More Money and Government Buy-back of UK Bonds
Better. But not perfect.
Which necessitates a larger government deficit, morphing into more government debt. Just what the UK economy doesn’t need is a larger deficit and even more debt. Neither helps the market, nor the government’s credit rating, nor the UK’s long-term economic picture.
It’s too soon to see if this plan will work. But it works in other countries, and it should work in the UK, with the caveat that the privilege isn’t abused by future Chancellors as a sort of ‘silver bullet’ that will solve every economic problem. It’s not a magic bullet.
Printing money and buying back bonds will have a small, but positive influence on the overall economy. Likely, both the PM and the Chancellor now realize that it should’ve been the first step in a 6-step programme to address problems and provide solutions to the UK’s present economic challenges.
Five More Ways to Lift the UK Economy and Prevent (or limit) a UK Recession
ONE: Working people pay more tax than unemployed people. It’s a fact. Ask any economist.
Therefore, the government should spend serious stimulus money (even though it’s borrowed money) on ‘shovel-ready’ infrastructure projects. But it shouldn’t spend on projects that can’t begin construction within the next 8-months, because that’s too far in the future to fix what’s broken now. ‘Shovel-ready’ means ready to begin digging within weeks. Not years.
TWO: Companies that export goods or services, bring ‘new’ money into the economy, thereby stimulating the overall UK economy.
The domestic economy in the UK is pretty sophisticated so there’s little room for improvement — but there’s plenty of room for improvement in regards to exports. The UK’s track record on facilitating an export-driven economy is dismal when measured against such exporting superstars as Germany and Japan. To correct this, the UK government must provide a tax advantage to companies or individuals that export goods or services. I politely suggest an 8% tax break on exported items. Five per cent won’t incentivize companies enough to make exporting a priority, and ten per cent would make it difficult for the government to recover the lost tax revenue over a number of years, no matter the increase in exports over the short-term. This 8% tax advantage could be raised or lowered annually, thereby providing the government with yet another lever with which to control (adjust) the UK economy as necessary. Priceless!
THREE: Citizens earning less than £25,000. per year contribute little to overall UK government revenue, so there’s little loss for the government to forego taxing them.
However, changing the income tax threshold so that workers who earn under £25,000. per year don’t pay any income tax whatsoever, can make a huge difference in the lives of those workers! It’s the difference between a presently unemployed person being able to afford to take the train to a job every day, or not. It’s the difference between a presently unemployed tradesperson being able to insure his work van, or not. It’s the difference between a presently unemployed worker being able to afford daycare for her children so she can apply for a job, or not. It’s the difference between a presently unemployed person moving to another city for a job, or not. In so many ways, this change represents a small change in government tax policy and revenue — which results in a large change in the employment situation for presently unemployed workers. The UK workforce needs to be firing on all eight cylinders, not the present five-out-of-eight cylinders.
FOUR: The UK should harmonize it’s Corporate Tax Rates and policies with Canada, which has an attractive and simplified corporate tax structure.
And it works. Throughout the entire subprime market crisis and subsequent recession, Canada’s economy was the strongest of all G7 economies and Canadians only knew about the recession playing out in the United States and Europe by watching American news channels. The reason Canada sailed through the recession is precisely because of their low-ish and simplified corporate tax rate structure. Many Western companies moved to Canada in the 2008 to 2011 timeframe in order to take advantage of those low corporate tax rates — and in so doing — saved their companies from insolvency. Some returned to the United States following the economic recovery, while some remained in Canada. You can’t buy advertising like that! Recessions occur approximately every 25-years in the Western world, and the next one is almost upon us. Now is the time to make the UK’s corporate tax rate as favourable as Canada’s, and reap the benefits thereof. Doing it after the looming recession hits, means that the UK must wait for the next recession 25-years hence, in order to reap the benefits and bragging rights of lower and simpler corporate tax rates.
FIVE: The UK government should finance 10 Solar Panels on every UK rooftop (via loan guarantees to banks) to add capacity to the national grid, to provide significant energy cost savings to energy users, and to allow for increased energy exports to the continent.
Almost every UK rooftop could host 10 solar panels and thereby add plenty of electricity to the grid during the daylight hours — which, happily, is when the grid faces it’s peak demand. Because rooftops are everywhere in the country, it won’t matter if some northern panels are covered with snow, or if London happens to be covered with a layer of fog — because the rest of the country will still receive sunlight and contribute huge amounts of electricity to the grid. Ten panels per rooftop means that homeowners can (automatically) sell their surplus electricity to the grid via a net-metering connection. Whether private homes, farms with several outbuildings, schools, retail businesses or industrial buildings, placing 10 solar panels on each rooftop in the country could save energy consumers astonishing amounts of money annually, and add significant capacity and stability to the national grid, and allow MANY GIGAWATT HOURS worth of surplus energy to be exported to the continent.
So there’s the low-hanging fruit. There ARE WAYS to improve the UK economy, not by giving tax breaks to the wealthy — who, it turns out, don’t want them because they’ve all the tax breaks they need — but by strengthening the parts of the UK economy that are presently weak, and could be made robust via simple changes to existing policy.
I’m proud of the new Prime Minister and her Chancellor, because, facing a looming crisis, they decided to actually DO SOMETHING! as opposed to just hiding until the storm passes.
Full marks on that, Liz and Kwasi! It’s easy to see that you both care about the country and about how its citizens and businesses are faring.
If you continue to be responsive to the peoples’ needs, I’m confident they’ll respond favourably to you, and your poll numbers will prove that statement true as time rolls forward.
Wishing you every success as you craft policy appropriate to the times in which we live and seek to pass it in the UK House of Commons in a timely manner for best effect.
Written by John Brian Shannon
Three Ways the UK Can Be Part of the COP26 Solution Instead of Part of the (CO2) Problem
First, we need to decide if we’re actually going to do something about rising CO2 levels, increased air pollution and rising sea-levels, or whether we’re on another junket to a UN Climate Change Conference.
See: UN Climate Change Conference UK 2021, October 31 through November 1, 2021.
Once we’ve decided that, we’re in a better position to decide if this conference is the one that will save humanity (from itself) or whether we must wait for a future COP summit to make concrete progress toward clean air in cities, lower pollution levels generally, and decreased sea-level rise.
At Present, We’re On Track to Lose This Fight
It’s being widely reported by major media outlets that even if every government on Earth kept it’s best CO2 reduction promises, we’d still be far below meeting our CO2 reduction targets… by such a large margin that instead of limiting global warming to +1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels, we’d actually experience a global warming of +3ºC by 2050.
That is not acceptable.
Widespread crop failures due to agricultural drought (in some areas) massive flooding (in other areas) a huge uptick in wildlife die-offs, millions of square miles of low-lying land lost to the sea forever, and catastrophic consequences for human life would be the result of missing our 2015 Paris Agreement targets.
And if we end up in such a situation, we’ll have no one to blame except the politicians of today… for it is their job to create legislation and regulation, have them passed into law, and see that those regulations are enforced.
It isn’t the responsibility of hockey players, nor is it the responsibility of bus drivers, waitresses, fast food workers, airline pilots or English literature professors to do this — it’s the responsibility of politicians to protect us from the poor policies of previous politicians.
Is Climate Change ‘Too Big’ a File to Leave to Politicians?
Well, don’t look now, but yes, it is ‘too big a problem’ to leave to politicians if past experience is to guide us.
Yet, there have been signs of excellence in some jurisdictions.
California, for one, which used to have the worst air pollution in the United States along with astronomical respiratory related healthcare costs, is now among the best in the world in advanced clean air policy.
The beautiful country of Norway is another shining example that sources almost 100% of its electrical power from renewable energy and is a place where 40% of new cars sold are electric vehicles, and by 2025, petrol-engined cars won’t be available for sale. Existing petrol and diesel-engined cars will still be legal to own and drive in Norway, but you won’t be able to buy or import a new diesel or petrol-engined car in Norway. And the sky didn’t fall, Norway’s economy didn’t crumble, and life continues a.
There are other stellar examples in the world of farsighted environmental policy by governments, but not enough.
But California, Norway and others have proven that it is possible to reduce vehicle emissions and switch to renewable energy at the same time — and both enjoy robust economies — so don’t even try that argument.
Switching to a green economy does cost money, but saves more money than it costs over the medium and long term.
Three Concrete Ways the UK Could Take Real Action Against Climate Change:
- END ALL ENERGY SUBSIDIES. People who receive subsidized energy use more energy. Obviously. Lowering energy wastage is the best way to lower consumption. Whether petrol or diesel motor fuel subsidies, utility company subsidies, or other energy subsidies — ALL SUBSIDIES = MORE ENERGY USAGE/WASTAGE/CONSUMPTION/DEMAND. Therefore, even renewable energy subsidies, yes, even renewable energy subsidies, must be discontinued in order to lessen total demand. When you lessen demand, you meet your clean air and CO2 targets.
- SWITCH ALL MOTOR AND AIRCRAFT FUELS TO BIOFUEL BY 2025. Biofuel burns 80 per cent cleaner than conventional petroleum fuel in cars, light trucks and semi-trailer transport trucks. Even moreso in jet aircraft engines, as Boeing, Etihad Airlines, Virgin Air, Alaska Air and the US Navy have proven beyond any doubt. Those jets burn 94 per cent cleaner compared to conventional kerosene fuel and they have a lighter maintenance schedule because they don’t produce as much soot in the combustion process. When you burn clean biofuel, you meet your clean air and CO2 targets.
- LEGISLATE THAT ALL CARS, TRUCKS AND SEMI TRUCKS BE POWERED BY ELECTRICITY BY 2025, AS NORWAY HAS DONE. Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV’s) are wildly popular with those who own them, they require far less maintenance, they’re more reliable, they don’t pollute, and batteries will become about as recyclable as petrol engines are at the moment. And you can charge BEV’s at home from an ordinary wall socket. Plus, they have astounding acceleration from a standing start. And no noise. If you like peace and quiet, you’ll love electric vehicles. When you drive EV’s, you meet your clean air and CO2 targets.
It is important to state that by utilizing any one of those above three choices, the UK
(or any country) would meet its Paris CO2 emission reduction targets.
The Time for ‘Kicking the Can Down the Road’ is Long Past
Now is the time for real and concrete action designed to meet all of our clean air and CO2 targets.
There can be no excuse at this late date for inaction or tepid moves toward clean air/CO2 emission reduction, or people (voters) will become convinced that climate change/clean air targets/CO2 emission targets/sea-level prevention problems are ‘too big’ for mere politicians to solve, and at that point, politicians will increasingly find themselves disrespected and marginalized in every future decision-making process!
Save Our Planet or Leave!
So, by not solving the climate crisis now, today’s political leaders will become even more irrelevant to their citizens than at present.
In contrast, by solving the climate crisis now when it matters, it means that policymakers will help to create a less toxic environment for people and wildlife, help to reduce the incidences of floods, droughts, pestilence, a loss of biodiversity, and will help to lower healthcare costs and taper the mind-blowing financial costs associated with countering sea-level rise… and for politicians, it means saving their profession from contempt and eventual marginalization.
Written by John Brian Shannon
Letter to Britain 