Recent View from the Prairie Articles

March 2025

Move Fast and Kill People

When we stagger out of bed and get ready for work, we often follow a routine. We have a "process" we use over and over again. One of the most powerful parts of modern management is how we develop and rely upon processes to perform functions over and over again. While some people attempt to circumvent such processes and processes do need to be rethought on a regular basis, destroying a process can destroy the organization. When people's lives are at stake, following a well thought out process can be essential to survival. Back in 2011, JC Penney was struggling and the board brought in a new CEO.

Turn Problems Around

Does singing a country song backwards bring back your pickup and dog? While humorous to think that it might, this saying is about looking at problems from the other end. Many times, we get caught up in one way of thinking and turning the problem around is a great way to see our problem in a new light. When we look at the potential failures of investments, we might be able to see things we missed when full of enthusiasm.

World Champion or DEI Hire?

In early February, the basketball world was shocked by the Luka Doncic trade. Many wondered if the manager really knows how to evaluate talent. When looking at someone, do we see only the surface and call that person a "DEI hire" or go beyond the surface and recognize a "Tiger Woods", a world champion? History is full of cases where people did not look beyond the surface and let champions walk to their competitors.

Greatness or Just Average

A small business person wanted a new video ad. They were able to use AI to generate such a video within a short time. For small business, AI is a great way to generate ad copy. Many writers view writing ad copy as one of the worst jobs they could have and using AI instead frees them from that. But AI generates average marketing, not great marketing. Great marketing tells a story, an irresistible story.

Leadership

Many people strive to be leaders, but lack leadership. Often, they think that the most important thing is to be loud and speaking often, even making up stuff. But leadership is first and foremost about moral authority - when others trust someone to make the next decision fairly and in a way that benefits the most people. Leadership involves vision, communication, and structuring things so that others can do more.

Once Rich - Staying Poor?

The ruins of Chaco Canyon are impressive. They show that in the 1100's, a vibrant and wealthy civilization flourished in northwest New Mexico centered on that canyon. Today it is a ruin. The only people living there are park employees. Mississippi was once the richest state in the Union. Today it isn't. Place after place has been wealthy and slid into a decline that can last hundreds of years.

The New Railroads

The hope of small towns when the West was being settled was to have the railroad come through the town. Towns thrive on trade. Farmers are very dependent on getting crops to market via rail, road, and boats. Later on, the Farm to Market Road system was vital to connecting people into towns. Today, high speed Internet serves the same role of connecting towns to the rest of the world. Having a connection to the broader economy is key to a town's survival. Small towns without this connection are fading away fast. The Internet is today's "new railroads."

Hire the Best

The most important thing a manager can do is to hire the right people. That means people with not just the skills, but the attitudes and integrity to be part of the team. A team runs on trust between the members, trust that things will get done, trust that bad ideas will be challenged, trust that everyone is working towards the same goals. The goal is to find people who are open to new ideas, to their ideas being challenged, and willing to adopt new paradigms.

The Second Time is not the Same

Fast food franchises spend a lot of time doing site research. They check traffic patterns, demographics, etc. Yet, the newly opened restaurants can and do fail. Things don't always work the second time. The world is a complex place and humans are equally complex. Simple answers may work once but rarely a second time. Innovations are followed by imitators and then by idiots whose greed undermines their efforts.

Rule of Law

Back in the Wild West, it was a mark that a town was becoming civilized when they could afford to hire a sheriff. Instead of each person enforcing what they believed to be right, the sheriff would enforce written laws and bring violators before a judge. The "rule of law" is a mark that an area is safer for business. Today, some states are experimenting with allowing individuals to enforce what they believe should be right. This breakdown of the "rule of law" is not good for the business environment.

Creating Business Value

In many a presentation to venture capitalist by people wanting investment, they present optimistic forecasts of lots of money some time down the road. These are so common that it is even called a "hockey stick" financial presentation. The vast majority will fail. When these forecasts fail repeatedly, they generate a series of financials that can be called a "hairy back." They fail both in making lots of money and in creating value. It is time to look at creating value in business. Making lots of money is not necessarily creating value.

Data is cheap, Information costs

Do you remember every detail of your latest drive? Nobody can. Often, we drive almost on "auto-pilot" with eyes seeing things that we forget, ears hearing sounds we forget, and thinking about other issues while navigating through traffic. We get flooded with data that we throw away. We quickly evaluate it and throw most away. The same is true with electronic data. Most of that data needs to be discarded because it is noise and we have to extract information out of that noise. Determining which data is noise and which is information is an expensive action. We want information to be free. It can't be.

Truth Detection Skills Needed

For thousands of years, written material was so expensive that people could basically trust what was written. When Gutenberg invented movable type, books and propaganda became cheap and people fought wars over competing claims. For years, TV news was trustable but today, "news" stations have people stating things that they know to be false. For years, we have been trained to trust what the computer told us but today, with AI, we can't trust what the computer gives us. A very important skill today is the ability to find truth amid competing claims. Our "untruth" detectors need to be on high alert especially when hearing something that we want to be true.

Go For Quality

Back during the Great Depression, auto sales dropped hard. The result was that automakers tried to out innovate their competition. A simple picture comparison of cars before 1930 and after 1940 shows vast changes in the "standard models". When a business is suffering, focusing on innovation and quality is a better survival strategy than cost cutting.

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