Touring The Space-Time (Dis)Continuum

Oh, I've got to stop watching that SyFy Channel.  But not today.

It has struck me that the so-called Great Recession has encouraged the ascendancy of the cost-cutters.  You know, the ones who don't get that price isn't the same as cost, and that cost isn't the same as value.  When tough times strike in an age of short attention spans, lust for instant gratification, and worship at the altar of the false gods of quarterly earnings, this crowd begins to think of themselves as the new priestly class.

And, when they begin to eviscerate the human infrastructure of supply chain organizations, the effects can be both long-lasting and deadly for both the host organization and its relationships with business partners.  The problem lies in, I suspect, that the results of cost-cutting are immediately apparent on the bottom line.  The consequences, however, are felt gradually, over a longer period, and without an obvious cause for the effect.

By the time that things go from not feeling quite right, to deteriorating performance and frayed supply chain relationships, and finally to the brink of irretrievable failure, the architects of collapse have likely moved on, generally upward.

I am among the first to recognize that aggressive cost reduction can be the only hope for a company in crisis.  But, cost reduction is not the same as improving performance.

We seem to need to learn this lesson once every generation.  And, so we wait for the pendulum to swing back, hoping that the learnings will stick with a few more practitioners than the last time out.