I didnt go to college and went straight to the Marine Corps and Parris Island two weeks out of high school. After four years in the Corps with two tours in Nam I came home to a changed world. My intention at the time was to get out of the Corp, spend a summer partying and head to Africa for some mercenary work.
Well, love happens, I met my wife (we're closing in on 41 years married)and decided against my original stupidity. Only problem was my wife wouldnt marry me unless I worked, as in a regular job. If any of you are old enough to remember the Dobie Gillis Show, I was like Maynard G Krebs "Work?!"
But work I did. Spent ten years going from mechanic, truck driver and General Manager of a small trucking company. I left to join Frito Lay in Detroit in their trucking operations and was promoted five times the first six years. I spent 13 years with them moving around the country and a stint in headquarters.
What I experienced and learned at Frito was invaluable. I learned about accountability, leadership and pay for performance. Back in the late 70's they had information coming out on the old wide computer printouts with the holes on the edge that put to shame every company I've worked for since, up to a couple years ago.
The thing that stood out was how close the leaders were to the operations on the ground. I remember how the President and the head of Operations and all the Logistics leaders would visit every plant twice a year, think 46 plants at the time, and we would have to present the state of our operations. Twice a year we had big get togethers where the whole company had to account for our performance in front of our peers.
When the Frito President was coming and the Sr VP op Operations I would spend a month prepping for my presentation because I knew they could and did hand me my head if I wasnt on top of my game. It was a little like the accountability in the Marine Corps that kept you alive when it all hit the fan. It felt good.
I left Frito after 13 years and went to Pepsi Cola. My first position was on a team to integrate the purchase of several franchises they were buying back. Pepsi was more fun and less accountable. This was in the early 90's and I began to see the gap between top and bottom growing. I saw it first at Frito in the late 80's but it was big time at Pepsi.
I enjoyed Pepsi but accountability was lacking. Performance was based more on looking what they called 'Pepsi Pretty' than it was the bottom line. As for the people in the field doing the work ... a necessary evil to the profit machine. It was a fun place actually but as for presenting to the President ... I'd got present to him with a day or twos notice. Not because he was a bad guy, he was a great person and knew the business from the sales and marketing side but as for operations, it was easy to cover.
Then I was told after three years, after getting a great annual review, (I was a Director level at the time) that I would always have a job at Pepsi but never be a VP. The reason was that without a college degree and at my age (46) I would never be a VP in a PepsiCo company. My boss at the time was a great guy and I appreciate to this day his honesty. I was gone within two months...to Compaq.
At the time I left there were four of us Directors working in operations. I was the first to leave, another who wasnt ready for VP left and became VP elsewhere and eventually President of one of that company's acquisitions. Another of the guys left in six months for the same reason and is today President of one of the nations top home builders. The fourth guy got promoted to keep him with the company. For me it began the age of the demise of once great companies.
I was at Compaq for three years in the mid-nineties when they were Houston's other Rocket. I was VP of Worldwide Logistics. I knew without a college degree I wouldnt be President of a Fortune 50 company but my goal was VP. I'd reached my goal and was never more disillusioned. When I write this it isnt about bad people it is about good people selling out for bad things. It was all about as our CEO would always remind us every quarter "We must be bigger!"
Bigger came to mean at all costs. It was all about stock options and how much everyone could make, sometimes laws be damned. It wasnt about the workers it was about the money. Great people sold out for the stock options that would bring them instant wealth. I learned in trucking and Vietnam that it is about 'the people' and this was the height, at least for me, of selling out. When I was called to present to the CEO of Compaq I'd go on a minutes notice. He didnt have a clue about our $2 billion budget. Just "We must be bigger1"
I left after a big fight after three years. I left to get my life back and went on my own consulting for large businesses. Over the next few years I would see the deterioration everywhere I went. Some of our marquee companies flying blind for the sake of bonuses and options. Think AIG, again, giving unreal bonuses. The top has no idea today how the work gets done on the bottom. Why do you think GM is a pittance of itself today.
I'm not preaching doomsday but we're not going to see the great economy of this country again anytime soon. It is going to take some serious awakening to turn this around. We live in the 'me' generation. Make my money now. Get my big house now. I never thought I'd see it but its here. And that same generation is leading us in DC and has been for some time ... and we're in the toilet, swirling. Unless something drastically changes our current 'me-me-me' culture America for our grandkids will disappear down the drain.
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