As I feared and published nine months ago, the double bottom encircling our industry has coagulated with a malevolent and recessionary punishment. The wicked nature of the accumulated FS sins is openly displayed within an unknown and unchartered “new world order.” Credit markets frozen, currencies trading in wide fluxes, while the mortgage market “deleveraging” is blamed as a root cause of it all. Yet, to assign blame is easy and we all have our personal “truths.”
As we are witnessing, arriving at new, cohesive, and globally sustainable solution sets is hard work. Bottom line, when the “old school” fundamentals become irrelevant, acceptance of new transformational innovations must be embraced and accelerated in the face of huge headwinds. Prepare for the next chapter in this financially engineered book — Transformational Krakatoa — it is a race to innovate and survive.Let me be very clear — what has been created in short-sighted greed and resulted in catastrophic turmoil can be fixed — if we are willing to act and act aggressively within a holistic transformational approach. It has been many years since organizations and their leaders were forced to adapt to new wide-ranging market realities. While organizations often implement large program initiatives to automate and selectively innovate operational processes, structural and foundational transformation needed moving forward is architectonically different.
In general, transformation happens continuously in every organization regardless of whether it is overtly recognized or passively accepted. Yet, wide scale business, organizational and process transformations facing our operations moving forward may involve the “destruction” or purging of efforts once deemed innovative before unwinding of historical “certainties.” These existing “innovative” programs are more analogous to business process improvement than enterprise business process reengineering (i.e., radical redefinition). As a result, operational transformational skill sets are not widely available, nor is this unique discipline generally understood.Suffice it to say those entities that rationalize and act on global market directions will internalize the need for rapid operational changes. Compartmentalization of delivery processes and operational results must be examined both discretely and holistically to ensure compliance, conformance and profitability.
Transformation is about a lasting blueprint that empowers organizations to be self-sufficient after the initial round of iterative efforts have been completed. There are volumes that I could write about the intricacies of transformation and its underlying techniques that I have learned over nearly three decades spanning numerous industries — perhaps another time.
However, there is one truism that has yet to be internalized — the lasting terms, conditions and implications of Transformational Krakatoa will be unfamiliar ones for bankers, vendors, rating agencies, c-levels, board members, and their partners. For G7 and even G20 nations, they are no longer in total control of their destiny, and their precarious hope of remaining autonomous resides with their ability to innovatively adapt to amorphous socioeconomic conditions.
In my personal opinion, if America is to once again ethically lead the way forward for the global economies, then we have to “accept” the reality — and quit lamenting the facts, not the personal “truths.” I don’t like the global reality any more than you do and it is unlikely that the EU or Asia Pac will become beacons of leadership. We can only move forward, not back, and we must aggressively embrace new models, personnel, skill sets, and yes, knowledge orchestration. Remember, “Leadership is about looking forward to deal with the crisis at hand, not backwards when the house is on fire.” There is always time and talk shows for blame attribution.
As we live through significant historical events, it may well be said that “never had so few materially impacted so many on a global basis.” The extortion of the markets and the subsequent retributions will ensure widespread Transformational Krakatoa for years to come. How will you handle it while adapting to the new global and domestic realities? Can salvation be realized using the forgotten disciplines embedded within transformational techniques? Where will they come from and who will teach them to employees and the “valued consultants?” If insolvency = MBS + No Confidence + “upside down” consumer + “old school” ideals / practices, what will the costs of hiring new skills and embarking on new initiatives yield? Is it too late to put all our money under the bed after a single week exceeding $6 trillion in aggregate losses?
