Corporate comeback strategies
Queenan, Joe
340: ¦Corporate comeback strategies n the past three years, tens of thousands of market-driven executives have taken bold initiatives to restore pride in and boost productivity at American...
...341...
...One guy said he was going to produce tangible results by vertically integrating my superstructure through a hands-on approach - provided I didn't mind working in a debased mode," says Terkel...
...Lote of people think mat it was the railroads, but, no, it was redundant layers of middle management...
...Massachusetts, bait-andtackle wholesaler that has receatSy hired several dozen executives shown to the door by their employers...
...Outplacement specialists agree that senior executive job opportunities are waiting in the low-tech and no-tech fields, particularly for seasoned veterans with deplorable interpersonal skills...
...Last but not least, Sluggo Terkel, president of Central Nut, Bolt, Nail & Screw (a subsidiary of American Ditch), says that one reason fat cats like him hire fellow fat cats is because senior management cannot decipher the corporate patois used by young honchos...
...I called building security...
...The obvious question is: What ever happened to the tens of thousands of indecisive, unimaginative, demoralising old fogies they replaced...
...We like our managers to have their feet firmly planted in the distant past," chimes in Lancelot Thorpe, product manager of Federal Broom...
...Redundant layers of management are what made America great," says Bambi Rodenda, head of Overnight Bureaucrat, a temporary-help service specializing in emergency paper-shufflers, factotums, and supernumeraries...
...By eliminating redundant layers of middle management, these deal-cutting mavericks have impacted synergistically on their lean-and-mean firms, strategically repositioning them on the cutting edge of tomorrow's technology...
...There's a burgeoning market out there for chronic losers and would-be has-beens because, believe it or not, a lot of American companies function best with these retreads at the top...
...Who needs innovation in the worm business...
...Many experts say that corporate America's current obsession with trimming salaries is a faddish deviation from tradition, ami that there will always be a place in this country for expendable senior-level employees...
...The first thing we look for in candidates seeking a senior management position is a gloomy disposition," says Greystone Black, personnel director of Planters for Peanuts, the nation's largest fast-mortician chain...
...We love intransigent old coots who are opposed to innovation," says Fred Chilton, chief financial officer of American Worm, a Lowell...
...340: ¦Corporate comeback strategies n the past three years, tens of thousands of market-driven executives have taken bold initiatives to restore pride in and boost productivity at American firms, implementing a symbiotic interface between state-ofthe-art technology and an increasingly entrepreneurial corporate culture...
...What they really want are dozens of dull, unimaginative managers to run their dull, uninspiring businesses...
...They conse to us," says Ganelon Fitzsimmons, president of Executive Deadbeat, a Gary, Indiana, executive search firm specializing in the recruitment and placement of senior executives...
...We . don't want morale to be high in this business...
...We can supply them with entire layers at'a time...
...His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, m4 Other publications...
...Bingo Latimore, vice-president of Plateaus 'nThings, a Beverly Hills executive search firm, says that the widespread firings have made his job much easier: "Lots of companies out there — particularly in the hinterland — aren't comfortable with the idea of hiring a single intransigent, innovation-resisting executive...
...Broom's motto is: "What will work^two weeks from tomorrow probably worked three weeks from yesterday...
...JQE QUEENAN Joe Queenan is a free-lance writer bused in Tarrytown, New York...
...It makes our customers suspicious...
Vol. 114 • June 1987 • No. 11
