eBook - ePub
Corporate Canaries
Gary Sutton
This is a test
Buch teilen
- 160 Seiten
- English
- ePUB (handyfreundlich)
- Ăber iOS und Android verfĂŒgbar
eBook - ePub
Corporate Canaries
Gary Sutton
Angaben zum Buch
Buchvorschau
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Quellenangaben
Ăber dieses Buch
In today's tumultuous business environment, managers want guidance in the form of a timely theme, a unique and memorable metaphor, and outside-the-box thinking. That's precisely what Corporate Canaries delivers. The book features five core chapters revealing five common business hazards, and each lesson is accompanied by a story based on the author's grandfather's work in the coal industry, as well as an applicable "canary warning" for each theme.
HĂ€ufig gestellte Fragen
Wie kann ich mein Abo kĂŒndigen?
Gehe einfach zum Kontobereich in den Einstellungen und klicke auf âAbo kĂŒndigenâ â ganz einfach. Nachdem du gekĂŒndigt hast, bleibt deine Mitgliedschaft fĂŒr den verbleibenden Abozeitraum, den du bereits bezahlt hast, aktiv. Mehr Informationen hier.
(Wie) Kann ich BĂŒcher herunterladen?
Derzeit stehen all unsere auf MobilgerĂ€te reagierenden ePub-BĂŒcher zum Download ĂŒber die App zur VerfĂŒgung. Die meisten unserer PDFs stehen ebenfalls zum Download bereit; wir arbeiten daran, auch die ĂŒbrigen PDFs zum Download anzubieten, bei denen dies aktuell noch nicht möglich ist. Weitere Informationen hier.
Welcher Unterschied besteht bei den Preisen zwischen den AboplÀnen?
Mit beiden AboplÀnen erhÀltst du vollen Zugang zur Bibliothek und allen Funktionen von Perlego. Die einzigen Unterschiede bestehen im Preis und dem Abozeitraum: Mit dem Jahresabo sparst du auf 12 Monate gerechnet im Vergleich zum Monatsabo rund 30 %.
Was ist Perlego?
Wir sind ein Online-Abodienst fĂŒr LehrbĂŒcher, bei dem du fĂŒr weniger als den Preis eines einzelnen Buches pro Monat Zugang zu einer ganzen Online-Bibliothek erhĂ€ltst. Mit ĂŒber 1 Million BĂŒchern zu ĂŒber 1.000 verschiedenen Themen haben wir bestimmt alles, was du brauchst! Weitere Informationen hier.
UnterstĂŒtzt Perlego Text-zu-Sprache?
Achte auf das Symbol zum Vorlesen in deinem nÀchsten Buch, um zu sehen, ob du es dir auch anhören kannst. Bei diesem Tool wird dir Text laut vorgelesen, wobei der Text beim Vorlesen auch grafisch hervorgehoben wird. Du kannst das Vorlesen jederzeit anhalten, beschleunigen und verlangsamen. Weitere Informationen hier.
Ist Corporate Canaries als Online-PDF/ePub verfĂŒgbar?
Ja, du hast Zugang zu Corporate Canaries von Gary Sutton im PDF- und/oder ePub-Format sowie zu anderen beliebten BĂŒchern aus Business & Management. Aus unserem Katalog stehen dir ĂŒber 1Â Million BĂŒcher zur VerfĂŒgung.
Information
Thema
BusinessThema
Management ONE
You Canât Outgrow Losses
EIGHT OF MY COUSINS and I sat around Grandpa, squatting on the scrubbed and waxed linoleum. He poked at the cobs flaming in his cookstove.
âThe luck was upon me,â Grandpa said, âso I wrote Mother a joyful letter. I told her they gave me eleven hours of work, earning two dollar and twenty, each and every day to scramble through the tunnels, wearing packs of dynamite. Motherâs landlord would read my words to her, and sheâd smile at my good fortune.â
Grandpa Sutton had left Ballybunion, Ireland, at age fourteen. He found work in a Harlan, Kentucky, coal mine.
CORPORATE CANARIES
Blaze McTavish owned the place. He pushed hard, never spoke gently, and didnât know how to stand still. He instructed the men to drill, blast, and shovel, drill, blast, and shovel, never detouring or studying the wall veins. McTavish believed if they dug faster and straighter, ultimately they would discover the most coal. Unlike other miners, he blasted, moving rock and soil faster, ignoring the quality of the ore.
âItâs natureâs game of chance, men,â he explained. âShe puts out thin veins of coal to fool us and hides the largest deposits elsewhere in her guts. The secret is to blast and dig far and fast so we score sooner.â
They dug. They blasted. They drilled. His mine produced more rock and consumed more dynamite, drill bits, picks, rail track, and ore wagons than all others combined in Harlan County. McTavish found just enough coal to maintain the frantic digging. The workers celebrated Thanksgiving with an underground lunch and a full hour break. With twinkling eyes, Grandpa said that his turkey drumstick looked big as a shillelagh. He felt thankful, feasting seven hundred feet below the surface of his new country.
McTavish worked the miners hard but did not ignore safety. Canary cages dangled from the overhead beams every fifty paces along each tunnel. The men knew to glance at the birds as they passed. If a canary fell from its perch, theyâd shout an alarm, and all would sprint to the lift, hoisting themselves up into fresh air. A tiny birdâs tolerance for methane is below ours, Grandpa explained. These lifesavers signaled danger before any miners fell.
LISTEN FOR THE CANARY
Just like the canaries detected poison gas, our first âcanaryâ warns when your company tries to sell its way out of losses. This is the most common cause of business failure. Iâm not innocent. I urged Graphic Arts Center, our subsidiary, to boost sales. They did. Graphic Arts Center, the largest printer in the West, âblasted and dugâ more printing business indiscriminately. We sold more. Losses started. My fault.
McTavishâs three powder monkeys, Grandpa, Liam, and Charlie, took turns loading and carrying the dynamite. Each week Grandpa worked in the shed Monday and Thursday, scrambling through the shafts Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.
âSo every three days, we powder monkeys rinsed our lungs with fresh air,â Grandpa explained. âBut the Irish Virus, that whiskey bug, infected Charlie. Heâd pass out in his tent many an evening.â
On the days when Charlie showed up late and hung over, Grandpa and Liam took his place, jogging to the shafts instead of walking. McTavish never noticed Charlieâs absences; he just grinned at Grandpaâs and Liamâs pace. Charlie always snuck in by 7:00 a.m., sixty minutes late, and worked an extra hour to compensate, until 8:00 p.m.
âI be scurrying through the tunnels,â Grandpa said, âand âtwas Tuesday. Me pal Liam loaded our vests.â Charlie showed up on time, Grandpa explained, so the pace went steady, yet hard enough that everybody sweated through their shirts by midmorning. Grandpa stooped and lugged explosives to the second tunnel, then the first, the third, and back to the second. He repeated several cycles before lunch, each time with a few sticks of explosives, never carrying enough to collapse the whole mine, should his load accidentally blow. Each canary chirped or fluttered as he passed. Grandpaâs lantern lit one wall, then the other, a stretch of ceiling, and the floor. He stooped and struggled, peering ahead.
âProbably âtwere always so,â Grandpa said, âbut me thick head only noticed something on that particular Tuesday.â He watched McTavish himself drill the holes at the end of a tunnel during one of his deliveries. McTavish shoveled rock later the same day, after a blast, at the end of Tunnel One.
It impressed Grandpa to see an owner work alongside them, handling any job in the mine. But Grandpa also noticed several thin veins of coal lacing Tunnels One and Three. Thicker lines ringed Tunnel Two.
Liam and Grandpa discussed this finding in their boardinghouse before falling asleep. Grandpa lay under the bed, with Liam taking his turn on top of it. These coal stripes fascinated them, but they followed McTavishâs instructions, ignoring the walls, drilling straight, blasting and digging, hoping to stumble across a mother lode.
Several days later, Liam, Charlie, and Grandpa talked again about how Tunnel Two showed black stripes of coal in several places. It seemed to them that these veins showed where larger deposits must exist. Some were hints, barely a finger wide. One ran from the midpoint in the south wall to the ceiling. Another circled the entire tunnel, never thickening beyond two fingers. The third stretched wider than a hand, ringing the entire tunnel. But most interesting to Grandpa, all grew bigger on the south side.
Liam reminded Grandpa that they were making so much money that they sent some home each week, and McTavish understood mining better than they. Grandpa agreed. But he kept thinking.
Grandpa got Liam and Charlie to drop an extra vest to him in the mine, placing it on the counterweight each time the cage reached bottom. This way he could deliver two loads and surface only once. Grandpa hustled. He couldnât do more in a day because delivering too fast might threaten Liamâs employment and certainly Charlieâs.
Blaze McTavish noticed. He wrapped a damp arm around Grandpaâs shoulders after work one night, told him great things lay ahead, and invited him to dinner.
âThat moment was sure to come,â Grandpa said, âand with McTavish seeing my efforts, instead of me boasting, I became all the more appreciated.â
They ate in the hotel dining room. Grandpa told McTavish about the coal stripes in the south wall of Tunnel Two, asking if heâd ever tried digging instead of blasting, simply following the veins. McTavish patted Grandpaâs forearm, harrumphed, and complimented his productivity.
Later that night, Grandpa told Liam he had mentioned the coal stripes to McTavish.
âMind your mouth,â Liam said, âoh, please, mind your mouth. We get princely pay from McTavish. Donât be risking things.â
Novemberâs temperature drop caught Charlie by surprise. He asked Liam and Grandpa if theyâd share their room, although he hadnât saved enough to pay. Liam and Grandpa felt awkward. Charlie had missed several days the previous month, forcing them to work harder to cover his absences. They turned him down, but dipped into their savings and purchased some old blankets from the hotel for Charlieâs tent.
Grandpa continued double-loading dynamite, making two deliveries instead of one per surface trip. He jogged to and from the shed on top. McTavish raised him by a penny an hour. He proudly wrote his mother, reporting his pay increase, hoping again that her landlord might read his letter to her. If not, surely Father Sullivan would.
LISTEN FOR THE CANARY
McTavish blindly pursued the coal, just as some companies blindly pursue sales. Indiscriminately. While competitors work smarter. EDS captured billions of contracts that IBM passed by. EDS bleeds, shedding management and employees while IBM reports profits.
Charlie, however, missed Monday and Tuesday, and McTavish noticed. When Charlie dragged in late Wednesday, he suggested to McTavish that they dig sideways, following the veins. McTavish fired Charlie. A James Wentworth, from London, signed on to take Charlieâs place. Charlieâs departure saddened Grandpa. A Brit replaced him, which agitated Grandpa.
âThat wretched kingdom, fouled nest of Cromwell,â Grandpa muttered, despising the British. They showed Wentworth how to pack the dynamite vest after he carried for two days. Wentworth learned where each canary cage hung and how to watch them. After several weeks, they worked comfortably as a team. Grandpa never disparaged England again.
One Sunday afternoon, Wentworth invited Grandpa and Liam to watch a steeplechase. A group of English miners from a smaller operation in Harlan County, the Bixby Mine, attended. Wentworth took care that the groups mixed carefully, betting only a penny on a horse, imbibing one half pint of ale apiece and no more, comparing mine stories.
LISTEN FOR THE CANARY
Just as Donald Trump yells âYouâre firedâ on TV, his casinos enter bankruptcy again and again.
âIt would be a chore, working for Bixby,â Liam said afterward.
âAye,â Wentworth replied, âthereâs apparently not a straight path in the place.â
âBut did ye notice they get more coal than we?â Grandpa asked. âAnd theyâre half our size. All digging, no blasting, just follow the veins.â They fell silent.
Early Monday, Grandpa pushed the sticks into the vests while Liam and Wentworth hustled up and down the shaft. Just as Liam scrambled back to the shed, Grandpa handed him a loaded vest. Blaze McTavish scurried past, shovel over his shoulder.
âTop oâ the morning, Mr. McTavish,â Grandpa said. McTavish turned, waved with a smile, and marched toward the shaft.
âWeâve blasted all three tunnels,â Grandpa added.
McTavish paused, shook a fist in the air, and shouted: âYouâre the pride of that green island!â
âMight I speak with ye after hours?â Grandpa asked. Liam paled.
âSure, laddie,â McTavish replied, walking on.
âOh, no,â Liam said to Grandpa. âLet things be. Weâre doing just fine. Donât be turning over the cart.â
Grandpa replied that he wanted to help McTavish do better. The difference, he said, would be following the veins, just like Bixby. âWith our size,â Grandpa said, âwe could fill five trucks with black every day. No blasts, just digging.â
That night, Mc-Tavish and Grandpa met at the hotel and split a pot of coffee. Grandpa told McTavish what he heard from the Bixby miners. McTavish frowned, stared into his cup, and asked how many sticks were blown in his own tunnels that day. He smiled at the answer, but stopped when Grandpa suggested that their blasting might not be as productive as following the veins. McTavish left without a word.
LISTEN FOR THE CANARY
Had Time-Life understood this canary lessonâthat you canât outgrow lossesâ the company never would have merged with ...