The success trap

Did you know that when you take the list of Fortune 100 companies in 1966 (America’s largest companies) and compare it with the Fortune 100 in 2006, 66 of those companies don’t even exist anymore? Another 15 still exist but don’t feature on the list any longer, while a mere 19 of them are still there.

It relates to a phenomenon we call “the success trap”; ample research and statistics show, for a variety of industries, that especially very successful firms have trouble staying successful, and adapt to fundamental changes in their business environments (such as new competitors, different customer demand, radical new technologies or business models, etc.). Over the years, they focused on the thing that made them successful (a particular product, service, production method, etc.) and as a result became even better at it.

Yet, this came at the expense of other products, processes and viewpoints, which were considered much less important, and were often discarded. Hence, the company had become very good at one thing, but one thing only… This is not a problem unless, of course, your environment changes. It’s just that most of these darn environments have the nasty habit of doing exactly that...

Then, the company is caught off-guard, and has trouble adapting to the altered circumstances. It is partly a cognitive thing. For example, how come that, in the early 1980s, IBM so dramatically misunderstood the emergence of personal computers? How come Harley Davidson had itself all but wiped out of the market by tiny Japanese entrants like Honda, who made very different motorcycles? How come the once dominant Firestone completely misread the emergence of radial tyres and went down the drains? Laura Ashley, Atari, Digital Equipment, Tupperware, Revlon; the list goes on and on of once dominant companies that at some point seem to lose the plot and get into severe trouble. Some of them recovered, some of them went under, arrogantly assuming that what they always had been doing – and what had brought them so much success – would always work just fine. Only to find out - the hard way, and often too late - that they were wrong, and the world did not need them any longer.

THE INTERNET, MOBILE MEDIA, AND YOUTH ARE NOT TO BLAME

Traditional media industries and companies are overwhelmed with an atmosphere of consternation and fear today.

Trade publications and industry association meetings are filled with news of diminished budgets, reorganizations, consolidations, and layoffs. People say traditonal media are declining and will soon disappear. Potential employees are wondering if there is a future for them in the industries and senior employees are hoping their jobs will last until they reach retirement. Everyone is pointing the finger,but most of the blame for killing traditional media is laid on the Internet, mobile media, and young people.

There is just one problem with their scenario. IT’S NOT TRUE. We have deluded ourselves into thinking that well established media are dying and that young people are uninterested in traditional text and audiovisual media.

Although new distributors of information and entertainment abound and video on demand and consumer-created content are increasing daily, consumers’ greatest time allocation and advertisers’ greatest expenditures remain with traditional media. Although young people have adopted newer media technologies more rapidly than other population groups, most of their media use still involves film, television, magazines, and non-traditional newspapers.

If the death knell for traditional media is not ringing, why do industry personnel keep hearing bells in their ears?

The reason is that significant changes are underway and most people don’t understand them. We have reached a era when the collective weight of expanded offerings of traditional media and the appearance of new types of media are ending the relatively undemanding operating conditions that existed due to lack of media choice and are removing the effortless profits that traditional commercial media enjoyed for a half century.

Suddenly there is competition. Suddenly there are financial losses. Suddenly there are company failures. Suddenly audiences are no longer satisfied with the “take content on our terms when we want to deliver it” approach that traditional media have offered. Only it wasn’t really sudden. Those factors have been growing incrementally for at least three decades. The problems were certainly compounded by the arrival of Internet and mobile content distribution, but they were not caused by them.

Let’s look at the case of the newspaper industry in the U.S. Readership problems have been evident for half a century. Although actual circulation rose continually throughout the twentieth century, reaching a height of 62.6 million in 1993, penetration has declined steadily at 1 to 2 percent each year since 1950. The pace has been steady despite the appearance of additional types of media. The expansion of network television didn’t increase the loss, the arrival of cable channels didn’t amplify the decline, and the arrival of the Internet didn’t boost the pace.

Today, the Internet is having an affect on advertising, but even that is not disastrous despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth. Total U.S. newspaper advertising was $46.6 billion in 1999 and $49.3 billion in 2006. In financial terms newspaper advertising is rising, but when accounting for inflation it has basically plateaued so one can not say the Internet is killing papers. If we look at classified where the biggest substitution exists, classified advertising in newspapers reached a height of $19.6 billion in 1999 and it was $16.9 billion in 2006. Clearly a decline occurred but it was offset by the fact that newspaper online advertising produced $2.6 billion in 2006. Overall, the business has stopped growing and investors are unhappy, but the industry isn't dying.

Certainly, the Internet is having many effects on established media. Research shows that print media business models have been least disrupted, unlike audiovisual media, but that print media work processes are changing most among media. However, Internet, mobile and other new form of distribution are providing all types of traditional media new opportunities.

Similar things have happened in the television business. The change from a limited number of television channels to hundreds of television, cable and satellite channels spread the audience, reduced the viewers of dominant stations, and made advertisers unwilling to continue paying previous prices. The big 3 networks could count on ratings in the 20s to 30s in the 1970s, but today they achieve ratings in the teens and are fighting to stay among the big 3. Nevertheless, viewers want network programming--on TV, as DVD, as syndicated programming, as downloads. There is no sign that demand for interesting programs is diminishing even if the basic television ratings are falling and new ways of monetizing the content are being developed.

We all need to recognize that changes in traditional operations are painful for industries, companies, and their personnel and that the contemporary changes are placing a lot of stress on management and employees. Everyone would prefer to continue doing things in the old ways they know well, but because of the new conditions those business models, processes, and market techniques aren't working as effectively as in the past.

The biggest challenges facing people in traditional media today are pessimism and lack of vision. Morale in publications and stations continues to drop, and doom and gloom are everywhere. That negativism makes things worse internally, reduces confidence of advertisers and investors, and makes it difficult to think about trying new things or even trying old things in new ways. The first step out of this condition is to stop lamenting the passing of the past. Things will never be the way they were. So get over it. Move on. Discover and embrace new ways of operating and new opportunities to prosper and grow.

Does downsizing work, ever?

No it doesn’t.

Workforce downsizing has been a popular pass-time lately (i.e. over the past decade or two); more and more companies announcing mass lay-offs programmes, even if they’re not in financial trouble. The practice started in the early 1980s, when economic slowdown more or less forced firms into it, but proved to not be a passing trend when in the ensuing decades many firms continued to engage in systematic workforce reductions.

Of course firms engage in downsizing hoping to boost their profitability. But does it work? It has obvious advantages – waving the hatchet tends to lower headcount quite effectively, which obviously leaves you with lower labour expenses – but also some potential disadvantages – such as lower commitment and loyalty among the survivors. It is not immediately clear whether the positives will outweigh the negatives, or vice versa.

Therefore, Professors James Guthrie, from the University of Kansas, and Deepak Datta, from the University of Texas at Arlington, decided to research the issue in a systematic way. They managed to obtain in-depth data on 122 firms that had engaged in downsizing and performed various statistical techniques to examine whether the programme had improved their profitability. The answer was a plain “no”.

Beforehand, James and Deepak had thought that downsizing would likely be harmful for firms that rely heavily on people (such as firms in industries in which R&D is very important; firms with low capital intensity) and firms that are in growth industries (since it would be more difficult to justify mass lay-offs there). And they were right; in those type of businesses, downsizing programmes significantly reduced firms’ subsequent profitability.

However, they had also expected the reverse to be true; that firms in industries in which people were less central to companies’ competitive advantage (firms in industries with low R&D; firms with high capital intensity) and firms in low-growth industries would be able to get away with downsizing programmes, and increase their profitability as a result. Yet, there they proved to be wrong. Even in such businesses, downsizing didn’t help a single bit, and usually lowered performance. In fact, they couldn’t find a single business in which downsizing proved beneficial for firms.

Of course, firms in trouble need to do something. However, simply reducing your head-count won’t do the trick. As Fortune Magazine observed, most firms that downsize, “rather than becoming lean and mean, often end up lean and lame”.

Wanna play Strategy? Get a board game

I agree strategy is simple, but not that simple!

It continues to surprise me what people sometimes pro-claim is their business strategy. Take for instance the principles I often hear people suggest form the basis of their acquisition strategy.

When a particular transaction is being considered, executives have to go out and explain the logic for the deal to directors, investors, and analysts. Regularly, however, a strategic rationale is only being drawn up after it has been decided by management that the deal is “desirable”. Quite often, this logic will appear contrived, overly complex or simply made to fit the acquisition rather than that the deal results from a well thought through strategy in the first place.

For example, I’ve often heard the logic behind a transaction being explained in terms of complementarities; “it is a perfect match because their geographic spread perfectly matches ours” or “their product portfolio complements ours”, and so forth. Yet, just as often I would hear the logic being explained exactly the other way around; in terms of perfect overlap, for instance “it is a perfect match because they are active in the exact same markets as we are”.

Just the fact that you “complement” each other does not constitute a strategy. It might be worthwhile to combine forces, but first you’d need an argument to explain why this would enable you to create extra value. Without such logic, it’s hollow and meaningless. Similarly, just because you have perfect overlap doesn’t automatically imply it’s a good strategy. Why does adding it up enable you to do something you could not do before?

Yet, the one that always gets me is “the matrix”. Yep, really a matrix. On the horizontal axis, one places countries (in which the company is active). On the vertical axis, one places business lines (in which the company is active). Then, on the intersections, one ticks boxes (with a decisive “X”) indicating in which countries we have which line of business. And our strategy is: We fill the boxes. As many as possible.

“This acquisition is expensive, but it enables us to immediately tick six boxes!” Wow, yes, surely this warrants an 80% take-over premium – well done indeed; six boxes! We’re doing well, aren’t we?”

But strategy is really not the same as a game of Risk, placing pawns on a map of the world. Sure, perhaps it can be advantageous to own multiple business lines in that particular set of countries, but without a thorough explanation about why it’s these countries (and not some others), and these lines of business (and not some others), and why it is beneficial to have them all, that’s what it is; an oversized game of Risk. But with real money, and real people.

Your expectations manage you

I’ve ranted about self-fulfilling prophecies in management before. Another study along these lines was conducted in the 1970s by Albert King – at the time a professor of management and industrial relations Kansas State University.

Albert conducted an experiment in four different plants owned by one and the same company. The managers of plants 1 and 2 were told, by the company’s director of manufacturing, to experiment with “job enlargement” practices, in which machine crews had to both set up their machines and inspect their own finished work. The other two plants, 3 and 4, were asked to implement “job rotation” practices, in which workers switched tasks at scheduled intervals. Thus, Albert’s experiment appeared to be comparing the results of job enlargement with those of job rotation.*

Then Albert did a cunning thing: he lied. Because he introduced one other crucial difference between the plants. The managers of plants 1 and 3 were told that past research implied that the job changes would raise productivity, while the managers of plants 2 and 4 were led to believe that past research implied that the job changes would improve “industrial relations” (which should result in lower absenteeism).

Subsequently, for a period of 12 months, Albert measured both productivity and absenteeism levels at the four plants. Analysing the data, it turned out that where the plant managers had been told to expect higher productivity, productivity became 6 percent higher; where the plant managers had been told to expect better industrial relations, absenteeism was 12 percent lower, regardless of whether they implemented job-enlargement or job-rotation practices!

The changes in workers’ actual activities really had no influence; productivity at the two job-enlargement plants hardly differed at all, nor did absenteeism at the two job-rotation plants. It were the plant managers’ expectations that caused all the effects.

Albert stopped short of telling the people at the plants that the job changes would enable them to sing like Pavarotti because you’re starting to believe they would have brought the house down. People somehow achieve what they (are led to) believe will happen, regardless of the actual changes to the organisation. As Albert wrote “the results provide evidence that managerial expectations concerning performance may serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy”.

* this paragraph has been adapted from a chapter in a book by Bill Starbuck (2006)

When acquisitions take over

Firms are expected to base the price and hence the premium they are willing to pay for a transaction on their calculations of how much synergy the deal would be able to generate. Although long-term value creation is always difficult to quantify with any certainty, firms usually do the best they can and then determine the target’s maximum price.

However, once executives have their mind firmly set on acquiring a particular target but are outbid by a rival, this may be difficult to swallow. Often, it seems to awaken the warrior in them; they go back to their people and instruct them to “find me another 100 million or so in synergies” in the target’s books, which enables them to up the bid. For instance, we saw indications of this when Mittal was bidding for Arcelor, and it is hardly a sporadic event.

Clearly, this is a dangerous phase in a bidding process. Copious research, for instance on “escalation of commitment” in M&A deals, has indicated that overexcited executives have a tendency to not walk away from a deal when they should, mysteriously uncovering extra value in a transaction when a firm’s rivals are starting to outbid.

But I guess this bit is only human. It is the part that comes after that which always gets me. The company that ultimately “wins” the bidding war is declared the winner – in newspapers, business magazines, etc. They pop the champagne and celebrate, while the loser pouts and has a crisis meeting.

But are we sure that you are the “winner” when you just paid 300 million for a company you originally calculated was worth half of that…? And are you sure you really are the loser when you just made your competitor pay 150 million more than the darn thing is worth…? Somehow, I am not so sure, no matter what the newspapers say.

Seeds and fertiliser – how to build a firm

American visitor: “How come you got such a gorgeous lawn?”
Lord: “Well, the quality of the soil is, I dare say, of the utmost importance”.
American visitor: “No problem”.
Lord: “Furthermore, one does need the finest quality seed and fertilisers”.
American visitor: “Big deal”.
Lord: “Of course, daily watering and weekly mowing are jolly important”.
American visitor: “No sweat, just leave it to me!”
Lord: “That’s it”.
American visitor: “No kidding?! That’s it?!”
Lord: “Oh, absolutely. There is nothing to it, old boy, just keep it up for five centuries”.

What many firms, trying to grow fast or add scores of acquisitions, often fail to realise: Organisations work much the same way as a lawn. You can buy the machinery, lease the building, hire the people, acquire the assets pretty quickly and relatively easily, and put them together. But this does not mean that you will have a working organisation.

An effective firm requires that the various elements of its organisation - both the "hard" factors (such as its structure, incentive system, etc.) and the "soft" elements (such as the culture of the place, informal communication patterns, etc.) - are fine-tuned, interact and reinforce one another. Building such an organisation implies more than just "owning the parts"; it takes continued dedication, hard work and, most of all, it simply takes time.