Corporate Turnaround

Recently, there are more and more CEOs falling from grace. In the United States, forced exits accounted for 39% of CEO departures in 2002 up from 25 % in 2001, according to Booz Allen Hamilton. In 2002, Enron Chairman Ken Lay, Tyco chief Dennis Kozlowski, Qwest’s Joe Nacchio, Worldcom’s Bernie Ebbers. Year 2003 saw the departure of CEOs from Raytheon, Kmart, Spiegel, Scherling Plough, Motorola, Freddie Mac, Boeing, American, etc.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) in 13 April 2004 reported that Professor David Yermack of New York University Stern School of Business found that the average shareholder gains underperformed market benchmarks at companies where the chief flies by luxurious corporate jets. In the study, ‘Flights of Fancy: Corporate Jets, CEO Perquisites and Inferior Shareholder Returns’, Professor Yermack said: “The central result of this study is that CEO’s personal use of company aircraft is associated with severe and significant under-performance of their employers’stock. Firms’stock prices drop an average of 2 percent around the date of initial disclosure of corporate plane use.”

Some of the CEOs may not be justifiably fired as the economy turns bad through no faults of theirs’ but they were held accountable. However, the days of fat cats running corporations are over.

Uncontrolled and unnecessary costs destroy businesses. If your competitor has a limo and you do not, you are already winning. He has a leaky bucket. There are six self-made multi-billionaires. And all of them were paragons of simplicity and prudence in self-aggrandisement.

In 1991, Sam Walton founder of Wal-Mart drove an eight-year-old red Ford pickup. He always fetched his own coffee. As President of EDS, Ross Perot paid himself $70,000 a year. However, when Perot sold EDS to General Motors, the President of General Motors, Perot’s new boss, made $2.4 million salary plus a bonus. Finally, he paid Perot $2.5 billion to go away because GM executives were embarrassed by the folksy Perot, who did not demand a fat salary or swanky office or specially tuned cars. David Packard never had an enclosed office before he left Hewlett-Packard for government service. Bill Gates of Microsoft often rode coach on planes, until they finally got so big they ran their own fleet of aircraft. Warren Buffet manages Berkshire Hathaway’s billions and billions with a staff of 24. When they lunch together, it is McDonald’s. Warren still stayed in the same house that he bought thirty years ago and drew on a salary of US 100,000 per annum. Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of Ikea takes the company bus to his stores.

Indeed examples of executive abuses dominated the news during 2002. Many Enron employees were fired whilst Senior Executives used $200,000 to fund its luxury box at the formerly named Enron Field. Though founded on the innovative idea of instant photography, Polaroid’s management failed to save the company from the shift to digital cameras. Polaroid reportedly cancelled health-care benefits for the company’s retirees in the wake of its Chapter 11 filing. However, management reportedly petitioned the bankruptcy court for permission to dole out roughly $19 million in bonuses to keep key executives from leaving. Webvan is another example. It failed to compete against the traditional supermarkets with its online shopping services and home delivery. Before it ceased operations, the company reportedly agreed to pay its resigning CEO, George Shaheen, $375,000 per year for life although the Webvan’s stock price plunged 99 percent during his tenure.

Kmart in bankruptcy authorised payments of $362,000 per month in retirement benefits to some 242 of its executives. The Kmart’s creditors which K mart owed $6 billion protested to a Chicago bankruptcy judge.

L A Times writer John Balzar observed that creditors and shareholders are not the only ones enraged at the seemingly arrogant attitudes of America’s corporate giants. “Consumers are mad, and some are declaring petty war against the mighty corporation, against shenanigans, the double-dealing, the get-rich-quick schemes, the fraud, the selfserving deals.” Those investors felt that they have been robbed as they saw their retirement savings dwindled.

In America, CEOs compensation surged 1000% in three decades, making it to 500 times the pay of the average worker. Yet, they are greedy for more. Martha Stewart of the ImClone System expensed off the US 17,000 cost of a holiday to her company. Dennis Kozlowski spent US$15,000 on a ‘dog umbrella stand’ and US$6000 on shower curtain. John Rigas spent US $20,000 of Adelphia’s shareholders’ funds on a Christmas tree. The list of corporate excesses goes on and on.

CEOs who live ‘fat cat’ lifestyles using corporate funds should be slaughtered and skinned.

Recently, there are more and more CEOs falling from grace. In the United States, forced exits accounted for 39% of CEO departures in 2002 up from 25 % in 2001, according to Booz Allen Hamilton. In 2002, Enron Chairman Ken Lay, Tyco chief Dennis Kozlowski, Qwest’s Joe Nacchio, Worldcom’s Bernie Ebbers. Year 2003 saw the departure of CEOs from Raytheon, Kmart, Spiegel, Scherling Plough, Motorola, Freddie Mac, Boeing, American, etc.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) in 13 April 2004 reported that Professor David Yermack of New York University Stern School of Business found that the average shareholder gains underperformed market benchmarks at companies where the chief flies by luxurious corporate jets. In the study, ‘Flights of Fancy: Corporate Jets, CEO Perquisites and Inferior Shareholder Returns’, Professor Yermack said: “The central result of this study is that CEO’s personal use of company aircraft is associated with severe and significant under-performance of their employers’stock. Firms’stock prices drop an average of 2 percent around the date of initial disclosure of corporate plane use.”

Some of the CEOs may not be justifiably fired as the economy turns bad through no faults of theirs’ but they were held accountable. However, the days of fat cats running corporations are over.

Uncontrolled and unnecessary costs destroy businesses. If your competitor has a limo and you do not, you are already winning. He has a leaky bucket. There are six self-made multi-billionaires. And all of them were paragons of simplicity and prudence in self-aggrandisement.

In 1991, Sam Walton founder of Wal-Mart drove an eight-year-old red Ford pickup. He always fetched his own coffee. As President of EDS, Ross Perot paid himself $70,000 a year. However, when Perot sold EDS to General Motors, the President of General Motors, Perot’s new boss, made $2.4 million salary plus a bonus. Finally, he paid Perot $2.5 billion to go away because GM executives were embarrassed by the folksy Perot, who did not demand a fat salary or swanky office or specially tuned cars. David Packard never had an enclosed office before he left Hewlett-Packard for government service. Bill Gates of Microsoft often rode coach on planes, until they finally got so big they ran their own fleet of aircraft. Warren Buffet manages Berkshire Hathaway’s billions and billions with a staff of 24. When they lunch together, it is McDonald’s. Warren still stayed in the same house that he bought thirty years ago and drew on a salary of US 100,000 per annum. Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of Ikea takes the company bus to his stores.

Indeed examples of executive abuses dominated the news during 2002. Many Enron employees were fired whilst Senior Executives used $200,000 to fund its luxury box at the formerly named Enron Field. Though founded on the innovative idea of instant photography, Polaroid’s management failed to save the company from the shift to digital cameras. Polaroid reportedly cancelled health-care benefits for the company’s retirees in the wake of its Chapter 11 filing. However, management reportedly petitioned the bankruptcy court for permission to dole out roughly $19 million in bonuses to keep key executives from leaving. Webvan is another example. It failed to compete against the traditional supermarkets with its online shopping services and home delivery. Before it ceased operations, the company reportedly agreed to pay its resigning CEO, George Shaheen, $375,000 per year for life although the Webvan’s stock price plunged 99 percent during his tenure.

Kmart in bankruptcy authorised payments of $362,000 per month in retirement benefits to some 242 of its executives. The Kmart’s creditors which K mart owed $6 billion protested to a Chicago bankruptcy judge.

L A Times writer John Balzar observed that creditors and shareholders are not the only ones enraged at the seemingly arrogant attitudes of America’s corporate giants. “Consumers are mad, and some are declaring petty war against the mighty corporation, against shenanigans, the double-dealing, the get-rich-quick schemes, the fraud, the selfserving deals.” Those investors felt that they have been robbed as they saw their retirement savings dwindled.

In America, CEOs compensation surged 1000% in three decades, making it to 500 times the pay of the average worker. Yet, they are greedy for more. Martha Stewart of the ImClone System expensed off the US 17,000 cost of a holiday to her company. Dennis Kozlowski spent US$15,000 on a ‘dog umbrella stand’ and US$6000 on shower curtain. John Rigas spent US $20,000 of Adelphia’s shareholders’ funds on a Christmas tree. The list of corporate excesses goes on and on.

CEOs who live ‘fat cat’ lifestyles using corporate funds should be slaughtered and skinned.

Many companies have annual medical examinations and health screening for their employees but are negligent when it comes to their own corporate check-ups. Poor management and financial information systems typically get blamed for management’s inability to ’see it coming’. This is because the checks were done too late. Similar to handling of diseases and illness, early diagnosis and detection can mean the difference between life and death. Medical science has proven that even terminal diseases such as cancer can be cured if detected early. This is why doctors encourage their patients to go for regular check-ups. Regular checkups are critical to facilitating early detection and helps to remedy ailments.

Likewise for companies, if the problems are discovered early enough, help can be rendered. Otherwise, the danger of late detection may mean that help can come too late and the sick company will have a lesser chance of recovery. Thus companies need to know their current health status and should go for regular health checks.

Companies should know their current fitness level as part of the regular health check. The fitness level assesses the state of health of the global, local economic and political arena, the industry specific issues and dynamics as well as the issues relating to the company. The trouble is that companies do not know their state of fitness and often adopt a ‘firefighting’ approach whenever the companies are in trouble. Early diagnosis is always better than a post-mortem.

On the economic front, the check should evaluate some of the leading economic indicators such as GDP growth, consumer confidence and stock market growth. Political stability is also critical as political chaos can severely upset economic and business confidence.

On the industry front, the check should include reviewing the business trends, consumer spending, the competition as well as the product life cycle.

At the company level, the check should reveal a full picture of the company’s profit and loss, balance sheet as well as cash flow positions. The use of financial ratios as key performance indicators will help to identify current and potential troubles. Control procedures should be reviewed to ensure that the company does not undertake too much risks and financial burdens.

It is useful for companies to hire turnaround experts to review the company’s operational, financial and sales/marketing matters. This is a business audit. Unlike the annual external audit which focuses on the financial checks and balances. The business audits will check on the overall corporate health including studying into the viability of the business model. Turnaround experts are better positioned to do this job as they have undertaken corporate turnaround assignments and therefore understand what make a company tick. An external accounting auditor will not cut it as he or she will not have the business acumen to understand the overall health.

Through these fitness checks, the company can then determine whether the impending problem is financial in nature, which may be a case of over-gearing and cash flow problem. Operational and control issues may be involved too, such as frauds, financial scandals, etc. These checks can prepare the top management for some exigencies such as a change of political regime, government or terrorist attacks, etc.

When the checks revealed any areas of weaknesses, the company needs to prescribe the appropriate treatment. The company may need to employ some form of financial reengineering to resuscitate the company. If necessary, enlist the assistance of turnaround specialists. Therefore knowing the state of one’s health is inadequate, one needs to take appropriate actions to remedy the situation.

Have you done your health check lately and got your temperature checked?

Most diseases including cancer and heart problems are easier to cure if detected early. Similarly, most sick companies can be turned around if the problems are discovered early. Sick companies need to be placed urgently into the intensive care units as the normal treatment regime is ineffective.

Unfortunately, owing to denial, ego or pure ignorance, many sick companies do not seek help till it is very late. Troubled businesses usually try to conceal their problems from others for obvious reasons - the creditors may stop their loans, suppliers may stop supplies, employees may jump ship etc. However, like sick people, sick company need to seek urgent help. They need to engage specialists to facilitate the restructuring programmes and to face the new harsh realities before it is too late.

Much like human health, more businesses are also destroyed by neglect than any other causes. This is why regular health check is vital to prevent any unexpected health problems, detect them early so that appropriate remedies can be administered. The traditional accounting methods such as balance sheets and profit and loss statements only capture the measurable financial aspects of the company at a certain point in time. Furthermore, the real financial health of the company can be masked by deliberate accounting irregularities as in cases at Enron and Worldcom. By the time the sickness is visibly evident in the company’s accounts, it may already be too late to take corrective action to reverse the situation. Oftentimes, when the accounts show red, the company is extremely sick or suffering from haemorrhage. There are many other non-quantifiable financial factors that may impinge upon the health of the company. These may include high staff attrition, low morale or an incompetent CEO.Usually, there are ample warning signs or symptoms of impending trouble. However, these warning signals are often ignored or suppressed; hence the onset of a crisis comes as a surprise.

Early detection of business problems is vital to sustaining a company’s growth, manage the crisis effectively and to contain the economic distress. Business problems rarely occur suddenly. Most problems develop over a long period of time due to a series of financial, legal, operational and strategic errors or miscalculations that went largely ignored or undetected by management. Some obvious examples that a company is heading down the wrong course include persistent operating losses, high key staff attrition, loss of morale and market share.

It is important to pre-empt any problems from arising by looking out for warning signals. Therefore, a proverb that says: “The superior doctor prevents sickness. The mediocre doctor attends to impending sickness. The inferior doctor treats the actual sickness.”

Many companies have annual medical examinations and health screening for their employees but are negligent when it comes to their own corporate check-ups. Poor management and financial information systems typically get blamed for management’s inability to ’see it coming’. This is because the checks were done too late. Similar to handling of diseases and illness, early diagnosis and detection can mean the difference between life and death. Medical science has proven that even terminal diseases such as cancer can be cured if detected early. This is why doctors encourage their patients to go for regular check-ups. Regular checkups are critical to facilitating early detection and helps to remedy ailments.

Likewise for companies, if the problems are discovered early enough, help can be rendered. Otherwise, the danger of late detection may mean that help can come too late and the sick company will have a lesser chance of recovery. Thus companies need to know their current health status and should go for regular health checks.

Companies should know their current fitness level as part of the regular health check. The fitness level assesses the state of health of the global, local economic and political arena, the industry specific issues and dynamics as well as the issues relating to the company. The trouble is that companies do not know their state of fitness and often adopt a ‘firefighting’ approach whenever the companies are in trouble. Early diagnosis is always better than a post-mortem.

On the economic front, the check should evaluate some of the leading economic indicators such as GDP growth, consumer confidence and stock market growth. Political stability is also critical as political chaos can severely upset economic and business confidence.

On the industry front, the check should include reviewing the business trends, consumer spending, the competition as well as the product life cycle.

At the company level, the check should reveal a full picture of the company’s profit and loss, balance sheet as well as cash flow positions. The use of financial ratios as key performance indicators will help to identify current and potential troubles. Control procedures should be reviewed to ensure that the company does not undertake too much risks and financial burdens.

It is useful for companies to hire turnaround experts to review the company’s operational, financial and sales/marketing matters. This is a business audit. Unlike the annual external audit which focuses on the financial checks and balances. The business audits will check on the overall corporate health including studying into the viability of the business model. Turnaround experts are better positioned to do this job as they have undertaken corporate turnaround assignments and therefore understand what make a company tick. An external accounting auditor will not cut it as he or she will not have the business acumen to understand the overall health.

Through these fitness checks, the company can then determine whether the impending problem is financial in nature, which may be a case of over-gearing and cash flow problem. Operational and control issues may be involved too, such as frauds, financial scandals, etc. These checks can prepare the top management for some exigencies such as a change of political regime, government or terrorist attacks, etc.

When the checks revealed any areas of weaknesses, the company needs to prescribe the appropriate treatment. The company may need to employ some form of financial reengineering to resuscitate the company. If necessary, enlist the assistance of turnaround specialists. Therefore knowing the state of one’s health is inadequate, one needs to take appropriate actions to remedy the situation.

Have you done your health check lately and got your temperature checked?

Most diseases including cancer and heart problems are easier to cure if detected early. Similarly, most sick companies can be turned around if the problems are discovered early. Sick companies need to be placed urgently into the intensive care units as the normal treatment regime is ineffective.

Unfortunately, owing to denial, ego or pure ignorance, many sick companies do not seek help till it is very late. Troubled businesses usually try to conceal their problems from others for obvious reasons - the creditors may stop their loans, suppliers may stop supplies, employees may jump ship etc. However, like sick people, sick company need to seek urgent help. They need to engage specialists to facilitate the restructuring programmes and to face the new harsh realities before it is too late.

Much like human health, more businesses are also destroyed by neglect than any other causes. This is why regular health check is vital to prevent any unexpected health problems, detect them early so that appropriate remedies can be administered. The traditional accounting methods such as balance sheets and profit and loss statements only capture the measurable financial aspects of the company at a certain point in time. Furthermore, the real financial health of the company can be masked by deliberate accounting irregularities as in cases at Enron and Worldcom. By the time the sickness is visibly evident in the company’s accounts, it may already be too late to take corrective action to reverse the situation. Oftentimes, when the accounts show red, the company is extremely sick or suffering from haemorrhage. There are many other non-quantifiable financial factors that may impinge upon the health of the company. These may include high staff attrition, low morale or an incompetent CEO.Usually, there are ample warning signs or symptoms of impending trouble. However, these warning signals are often ignored or suppressed; hence the onset of a crisis comes as a surprise.

Early detection of business problems is vital to sustaining a company’s growth, manage the crisis effectively and to contain the economic distress. Business problems rarely occur suddenly. Most problems develop over a long period of time due to a series of financial, legal, operational and strategic errors or miscalculations that went largely ignored or undetected by management. Some obvious examples that a company is heading down the wrong course include persistent operating losses, high key staff attrition, loss of morale and market share.

It is important to pre-empt any problems from arising by looking out for warning signals. Therefore, a proverb that says: “The superior doctor prevents sickness. The mediocre doctor attends to impending sickness. The inferior doctor treats the actual sickness.”

There are many important imperatives and factors which are not quantified or measurable by the traditional accounting system.

Human capital is perhaps the single most critical success factor for companies. But its importance cannot be captured or measured by the financial numbers. One can anticipate the failure of companies by observing the high defections within their middle and senior management ranks. The exodus of these key managers is the precursor to a much more severe problem, which can impact the continuity of execution and administration of the company.

Another intangible factor of the financial health is the morale of the staff. Although good morale of the staff does not always equate to good productivity, poor morale certainly spells trouble for the company. A reduction in the staff morale will result in reduction of the flow of constructive ideas and effective operation of the company. In turn, poor morale can cause the exodus of good staff and eventually a decline in the profitability and market share of the company.

Low morale is another intangible factor that cannot be measured using financial terms. High morale does not necessarily yield high productivity. Low morale is the definite formula for low productivity. The problem with low morale is that the flow of ideas is reduced, there is exodus of good staff and operations efficiency are affected in the process.

Unfortunately, the traditional accounting statements also do not measure the brand equity. Brand equity is actually the amount of good will resident in the brand. It is the added value endowed upon the product or service as a result of past investments and marketing of the brand. It is also an asset that the company must ensure that its value does not depreciate. Unfortunately, the brand equity is not captured in the balance sheet because of its arbitrary nature.

Another significant root cause of corporate failures is the quality of the CEO. Most turnaround situations arise because of incompetent CEO. Weak board of directors and the financial controllers are also a possible cause. Yet, the current accounting system in place does not measure the quality of these key management staff and board members. Other causes of failures include poor quality staff and dysfunctional corporate culture that are ill equipped to handle changes in the marketplace. The damage caused by such factors is often only manifested just prior to the financial numbers displaying the red flags.

Financial statements can give some amount of indication and warning signs. But they should not be solely depended upon to gauge the health of the company. There are many corporate and accounting scandals to testify that financial statements are insufficient.

The profitability barometer of a vulnerable company usually takes the form of negative or declining profitability. It may have been slipping for several years, consistently below the industry’s average and compares unfavourably with the competitors. However, the declining trend is sometimes confused with many other factors such as poor economic conditions, shocks in the marketplace etc. An experienced manager needs to be able to identify the problems long before the financial numbers turn red.

Troubled companies are often the result of incompetent management. The rot at the top will fester downwards as they also hire incompetent sub-ordinates. A good leader must ensure that the right people are in place or there is good talent management. Then the rest of the business will take care of itself.

Management failure, loss of market share, bad debts and poor financial management are the common manifestations of an incompetent CEOs. Incompetent CEOs usually hire incompetent managers who may lack the necessary expertise, business acumen and skills to run the company’s operations. These may result in untimely decisions and diminish the company’s opportunities for growth and expansion in the ever-changing world of business.

It is good for companies to rotate the positions and management posts regularly. This will allow for the people rotated to handle new challenges and portfolio. It brings fresh perspective to issues not seen by the predecessors. It is also one good way to identify leaders. Exxon-Mobil has an executive development programme for the staff rotation every two to three years. Engineers are asked to be financial analysts and economists asked to become logistics executives, computer analysts, etc. Through such rotational programmes, staff are groomed for higher positions and responsibilities.

Turnaround expert Peter Tourtellot suggested over the years, companies tend to promote cadres of yes men to ever-higher positions. This happens because upper management likes being told it is on track. Being a part of the organisation for years, the acquiescent hires are finally promoted to their level of incompetence. At that point they become fearful of losing their jobs and make them even less likely to criticize the company’s leadership constructively. Company heads should hire people with dissenting views if they want to have more balanced outlooks.

Most firms suffer from the weakness of having a team of homogeneous executives at the helm. Many of Compaq’s top executives came from Texas Instruments and Firestone managers were ‘gum-dipped’. This uniformity was no coincidence as these executives were the products of management selection and promotion processes that produced a standard product. It deprives the company of the much desired diversity of views and catalysts for effective response to market changes.

Consensual decision making works extremely well when there is the luxury of time to obtain to the right decision. The bad news is that the right decision often comes too late and becomes the wrong decision. Consensual decision often proceeds at a glacial pace.

In a company, the ‘yes’ men tend to find favour with the top management. However, they are usually promoted to their level of incompetence. To protect their ‘rice bowl’, they are unlikely to offer critical or dissenting views. This is why top management should encourage people with different views, especially if these are supported by sound facts.

To prevent a rat from getting up the pole, top management should have the discipline to remove ‘dead wood’in the company. It is important to perform periodic spring-cleaning of possible ‘dead rats’ as well as live ones at the workplace if you want to prevent an epidemic outbreak. Good management means not just hiring the right person but also firing the wrong one. This is good talent management.

Talent management functions hires the good personnel and fires the bad ones. This functions like the kidney in our body.

The two kidneys are the vital organs in the body amongst other functions cleanse the blood of toxins and keep it chemically balanced. The kidneys are sophisticated reprocessing machines and process the blood to filter out the wastes and extra water. Similarly a good talent management system will hire the good personnel, retain them and remove the bad ones.

Good management is not just about recruiting the right people to do the right jobs. This is particularly important during challenging times when staff budgets are cut to the bone. A strong management team must also have the discipline and insight to identify the dead wood in the company, and to be able to take firm action to remove them. These executives are those who have being entrenched in the system because of their job security and seniority are just cruising along and marking time. They do not have active and productive contributions as well as add value to the company. Most managers acknowledge that the most difficult task is firing of employees, particularly somebody that they have worked with closely for several years. Usually, the people that you did not fire are the ones that make your life miserable.

In many organisations, the decision-making power resides at the top. Empire-building by yes-men becomes the main preoccupation of the day. In the corporate intrigue of power struggle for status and position, the good personnel who may have differing views are stifled.

In talent management, the CEO has to look beyond himself and his abilities. He is smart if he hires the right people who may be better than he in those competencies to execute tasks that he himself is unable to do. He is then able to extend ‘his arms and legs’ within the organisation to get things done in more efficient manner. This philosophy is shared by Jack Welch as he felt that smart people hire smart people.

He said: “Every time you hire someone that is not better than you, you have missed an opportunity, because if you got all the answers, who the hell needs anybody else.” GE’s core competence is the development of people and Welch’s greatest legacy was to transform GE as the training ground of the world’s top business honchos. For example, the other two candidates, namely Robert Nardelli and James McNerney who did not get Welch’s job left GE to become CEO of The Home Depot and 3M respectively. Hiring the right person takes good skill in recruitment. Sometimes, even with good evaluation and hiring efforts, the employers do make the wrong hire. In such situation, you need to try to redeem the situation or live with it or fire the employee and start the recruitment process all over again.

However, in the situation of lean staff budget, you do not have the luxury of carrying ‘dead wood’. It maybe necessary to fire the wrong recruit. Jack Welch saw nothing wrong in delayering and downsizing incompetent people. To him, downsizing and delayering were absolutely necessary, and not firing workers who were a part of a losing business would have been more heartless than letting them go past the age of 50.

Welch the self-actualizer is also Welch the pragmatist and he sees these decisions as necessary threads in the fabric of business. . “That is business,” added the GE Chairman. He also explained it this way: “I think the cruelest thing you can do to somebody is give them the fake nice appraisals.. that’s called false kindness. A removal should never be a surprise.”

On the other hand too, retaining the people that you want to keep has become a key issue for organisations. When the key and talented people leave, there is a loss of experience and knowledge as well as continuity. Yet, companies would rather spend the valuable resources to recruit new talent from competitors than retaining the talent that they already have.

Planning tells you what is going to happen, post-mortem tells you what has happened Both planning and post-mortem are essential management tools needed to achieve corporate objectives, as well as to prevent the recurrence of the same mistakes. Planning for change must be the ever-present concern of every executive. At the same time, if events do not happen as planned, a post mortem is to be conducted so as not to repeat the same planning errors.

General Dwight D Eisenhower’s famous quote, “Planning is nothing and planning is everything” was a response to his cynical colleagues, who believed that, because plans never survive first contact with the enemy, planning was a waste of time. In the corporate world, quite often, planning gets thrown out of the window because of mounting short-term pressures to perform and deliver the bottom line.

Those who fail to plan are ultimately planning for a post-mortem. It is not that postmortem is unimportant but companies should always plan to succeed and minimize the occasions to do post-mortem on failed projects. Planning companies outperform those non-planning ones.

Crises and the unexpected changes are no longer a rare, random or abnormal part of our lives. They are built into the very fabric of society and modern-day corporations. While not all crises can be foreseen or even prevented, all of them can be managed if we plan strategically and tactically for what is humanly possible. The impacts of the crises can be minimised if one has a thorough understanding of the basics of crisis planning and management.

Tactical is short term planning whereas strategic is considered long term. Strategic plan looks at the forces in the external environment and responses to them. Tactical planning usually covers one year and is the stepping stone of the strategic plan, which normally covers three to five years.

Having post-implementation analysis or post-mortem is also critical. Just as a postmortem reveals the cause of death, a corporate post-mortem can be extremely revealing. You learn from your past mistakes and get all the feedback. It functions much like a resurrection experience, enabling you to have a new lease of life or second chance. In physical term it is reflection. Without this, the same mistakes may be made all over again and lessons learnt earlier will come to waste. This is why there is a saying that history repeats itself. Two world wars were fought within a short span of less than 30 years. Empires and dynasties fall and rise because of a lack of reflection and committing the very same mistakes that ushered them into power in the first place.

Post-mortem job is dull and boring particularly when it is preceded by overwhelming success. But it is also from reflecting upon your successes that one can avoid the pitfalls of failures in the future. Good managers always find out what has gone awry not so much to apportion blame, but to ensure that the same problems do not surface again. This is why some companies conduct exit interviews with departing staff to ascertain if there are more issues than meet the eye. Even chaos has its patterns. The post-mortem is the process to ascertain the patterns of things that have gone wrong so that these mistakes will not be repeated in the future. In the past, three strikes and you are out.

Today, one strike and you are history. This is because today’s world is highly competitive and you may not have a second chance. Through one mistake, miscalculation or strategic error, your competitors can steal away your customers very quickly. Your margins for errors are very thin as resources are scarce. This amplifies the importance of post-mortem to minimise repeating the mistakes.