Table Of ContentFM_Stocker_6X9.qxd 2/8/06 8:14 AM Page i
Avoiding
the Corporate
Death Spiral
FM_Stocker_6X9.qxd 2/8/06 8:14 AM Page ii
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Avoiding
the Corporate
Death Spiral
Recognizing and Eliminating
the Signs of Decline
Gregg Stocker
ASQ Quality Press
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
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American Society for Quality, Quality Press, Milwaukee 53203
©2006 Gregg Stocker
All rights reserved. Published 2006
Printed in the United States of America
12 11 10 09 08 07 06 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stocker, Gregg, 1959–
Avoiding the corporate death spiral : recognizing and eliminating the signs of
decline / Gregg Stocker.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-87389-684-X (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Organizational effectiveness. 2. Management. 3. Business failures.
I. Title.
HD58.9.S755 2006
658.4(cid:1)063—dc22 2006001952
ISBN-10: 0-87389-684-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-87389-684-9
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Contents
Figures and Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Part I The Corporate Death Spiral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter 1 The Corporate Death Spiral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
What Is the Death Spiral? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
The Warning Signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Part II The Warning Signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Chapter 2 Lost Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
What Is Purpose? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Profits and Stock Price . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Holding the Organization Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Identifying Lost Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Chapter 3 Number Obsession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
An Example of Doing It Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
It’s a Matter of Importance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Stopping the Madness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Identifying Number Obsession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Chapter 4 Supplier Squeezing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Considering Total Cost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Supplier Turnover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
What Is the Objective of Procurement? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Being a Great Customer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Most Understand, So What’s the Problem? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Identifying Supplier Squeezing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
v
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vi Contents
Chapter 5 Undervalued Employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Cutting Assets to Improve Profit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Evaluating Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Respecting and Developing Employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Continually Reduce Fear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Identifying Undervalued Employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Chapter 6 Dirt, Clutter, and Damage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Damage and Breakdowns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Dirt and Clutter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Identifying Dirt, Clutter, and Damage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Chapter 7 Operational Fragmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Departmental Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
What’s Blocking Teamwork? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Defragmenting a Complex System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
More Barriers to System Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
It’s a Matter of Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
How to Identify Operational Fragmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Part III Addressing the Warning Signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Chapter 8 Improving the Organization’s Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
The Need for Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Requirements for Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Appendix A Internal Organizational Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Prioritizing Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Warning Sign Prioritization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Appendix B Statistical Process Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
The Basic Statistical Formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Rules to Determine Stability of a System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Appendix C The QFD Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Appendix D Basic Reflection Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
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Figures and Tables
Figure 1.1 Weakening of an organizational immune system. . . . . . . . 3
Figure 1.2 The death spiral and crisis-mode management. . . . . . . . . 5
Table 1.1 Elements of a supportive improvement culture. . . . . . . . . 6
Table 1.2 Reasons for the lack of fundamental change
in business. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Figure 2.1 Market capitalization values. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Table 2.1 Technology-induced product replacements. . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Table 2.2 Customer needs in music media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Table 3.1 Causes of immeasurable but significant losses. . . . . . . . . 30
Figure 3.1 Plant comparison chart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Figure 3.2 Warranty expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Figure 3.3 Warranty expenses with February result added. . . . . . . . . 37
Figure 3.4 On-time delivery performance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Figure 3.5 Historical on-time delivery performance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Figure 3.6 On-time delivery performance after improvement. . . . . . . 40
Table 4.1 Example of total cost analysis for a supplier. . . . . . . . . . . 46
Table 4.2 Total cost of purchased materials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Table 4.3 Costs associated with purchase of supplies. . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Table 4.4 Losses to a company resulting from delaying payments
to a supplier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Figure 5.1 Success and happy employees. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Table 5.1 The true cost of layoffs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Table 5.2 Steps before workforce reductions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Table 5.3 Intended benefits of performance appraisal systems. . . . . 73
Figure 5.2 Improving below-average employees. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Table 5.4 Benefits of developing managers from within. . . . . . . . . . 76
Table 5.5 Typical fears within an organization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Figure 6.1 Example of a preventive maintenance schedule. . . . . . . . . 89
Figure 6.2 Example of preventive maintenance instruction sheet
(on back of maintenance schedule). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
vii
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viii Figures and Tables
Table 6.1 Benefits of clean/organized work area. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Figure 6.3 Using outlines to identify locations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Figure 6.4 Example of visual inventory control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Figure 7.1 Overview of the PDSA process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .104
Figure 7.2 Lost-time accidents for North American plants. . . . . . . . .107
Figure 7.3 Analysis of lost-time injury data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .107
Figure 7.4 Partial cause and effect analysis of joint injuries. . . . . . . .108
Table 7.1 Factors that affect worker performance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119
Figure 8.1 Reflection and PDSA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .129
Figure 8.2 The affinity diagram. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Figure B.1 Charts depicting data from unstable systems. . . . . . . . . . .148
Figure C.1 Level of involvement/leadership at each step of the
process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .153
Figure C.2 QFD matrix example. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .154
Figure C.3 Overview of the QFD process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .156
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Foreword
Most people, if told that they are in a death spiral, would pay great attention
to the doctor delivering that startling message, especially if told there was a
way out. Avoiding the Corporate Death Spiral: Recognizing and Eliminating
the Signs of Declinedelivers the same message to leaders of the world’s com-
panies. It is to be hoped that corporate executives will take heed to the mes-
sage of this book to avoid (or end) death spirals of their companies. But time
is running out for many formerly great companies! We have all witnessed/are
witnessing the decline of great companies that have been dying for many
years. Various leaders are brought in to save the company, but the decline
continues. Sometimes, a high-profile leader is brought in to save the com-
pany and a temporary lull in the decline occurs, only to be resumed when the
miracle worker leaves. Intransigent workers, governmental action/inaction,
and other forces are often blamed, but it is difficult for we who are leaders to
look in the mirror and find the real source of problems. In a great many cases,
the company in question could be saved and could prosper, but leaders do not
pay heed to the rather simple (though not short-term) messages of this book.
Most companies have corporate mission statements, affirming in writ-
ing their reasons for being in business and their vision for the future. Instead
of following their mission/vision and letting it drive their actions, however,
many companies put the declarations on the wall and pay no heed in day-
to-day operations. They never really decide who they are, who their cus-
tomers are, and that their companies are in business to serve these customers.
This type of mission/vision statement is a waste of time and paper. In my
experience, shared vision is one of the most powerful tools at getting people
to work together. Provided the course is right, this is vital to greatness.
Many companies that are in death spirals could know that they are there
by the numbers that they generate, but these numbers either come too
slowly or management will not acknowledge their problems. They suffer a
long-term decline of market position, profitability, customer service levels,
successful new products, and an increase in waste (inventory, scrap, rework,
ix
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x Foreword
and so on). Invariably, if they take action, it is short term. But instead of get-
ting to the root cause of problems that got them in trouble over a period of
years, they try short-term actions to solve the problem. A common solution
is to lay off workers, hire a fix-it CEO from the outside, and continue the
practices that caused the problems. In many cases, there is an obsession
with what the financial community thinks of the numbers, with no concern
about what happens in the long term. Instead of taking action in areas
where, many times, there seems to be no direct correlation to their problems
(that is, promoting from within, training employees in areas critical to both
present and future, creating an environment where all can work together for
the betterment of the company and its stakeholders, and so on), there is a
concern among the leadership of the company about improving the way the
numbers look in the short term and not enough concern for long-term, per-
manent solutions. There are times, especially when a company is in deep
trouble, that radical change is necessary. But there are no 90-day wonder
solutions that will last.
On the other hand, numbers sometimes indicate that things are going
poorly and such is not the case. In my own experience, a small company
with which I was involved (and which had been growing rapidly) grew only
3 percent, (SG&A) expenses went up, and profits dropped. The underlying
reason for this was the restructuring of the company that was needed to
improve quality and customer service for the long term. In the succeeding
10-year period, the company grew at a compounded annual rate of over 15
percent, profit margins went up significantly, inventory turnover increased
by a factor of five, and customer service level soared. Indeed, we were able
to have our cake and eat it, but the company had to invest heavily in people
and processes in order to realize its potential.
Another sure sign that companies are either in decline or stuck in a
fair/poor position is their attitude toward suppliers. These companies usu-
ally treat all suppliers (or almost all) as short-term, disposable sources of
parts supply at low initial price, and they always have an abundance of just-
in-case suppliers. While initial price is important, in most cases (especially
with key parts) working with good suppliers over the long term gains more
for companies through time to market of new products, total cost of prod-
ucts through excellence of design, elimination of waste from excess inven-
tory, efficiency of interfaces through mutual trust/effort, product quality,
and the speed with which products are delivered to the end customer. Good
supplier partners, like good user companies, have stable management and a
desire to continually improve.
In the company referred to above, there was a temporary loss of growth
and profitability due to investment in people and processes, but in the 10-
year period addressed, sales grew by more than four times, while the num-
ber of suppliers shrank by two-thirds. Suppliers were key to satisfying
