From Midwest Book Review: "America’s Corporate Brain Drain" is a look at the changing face of business and why it may be related to incompetent management of America's largest corporations. The masses of America, which used to support these massive businesses, are slowly losing faith in them and putting their faith elsewhere. An expose of the countless mistakes big business have made in recent years, "America's Corporate Brain Drain" is highly recommended for those who don't want to follow suit with the stupidest mistakes.
“Press ‘1’ to listen to five more phone menus. If this is an emergency, please hold forever for the next available operator….”
If you hate phone menus, you’re not alone. When big companies saw data proving that up to 70 percent of callers press “0” to reach a live operator, they did exactly what you’d expect. Instead of getting live operators to answer the phones, they disabled the “zero out” function.
From gouging gas prices to free checking accounts that charge for checkbooks and offer pointless point programs (50 percent of points are never redeemed), big businesses in America are disconnected. Most no longer offer the best products and services.
America’s Corporate Brain Drain reveals that the swell of me-too products and lousy service is because the best people no longer work in Goliath companies. We’re moving forward with Toyota and connecting with Nokia because the brightest sparks in the U.S. have left big corporations or are planning exit strategies.
The 27 million small-business owners didn’t get the boot—89 percent of entrepreneurs quit their former positions. Boomers are negotiating for early retirement to start hobby jobs. Grads aren’t willing to climb towering corporate ladders. Of the employees still stuck in big companies, 70 percent are unhappy with their jobs.
In America’s Corporate Brain Drain, corporate deserters, employees, and consumers who are fed up with behemoth banks and big old phone companies will find the real reasons why big business stopped working. And they’ll discover how Americans, who are increasingly unwilling to put up with inferior products and the corporate culture that creates them, are regaining control.
Excerpt
Silly Process Role #4
Any Title Containing “Support” or “Services”
Sales support, technical support, user support, customer support, operations support, administrative support, product support, field support. Are they titles you’d like on your résumé? If not, why would anyone believe that these titles would attract or retain top talent?
The human resources director and the SVP of Sales aren’t known as “CEO support managers.” The word “support” translates as “nonthinking order taker” to those with the title and those who work around them. A “support” title is insulting and signifies that the employee’s key role is to wipe the floor behind someone else, or wipe something else. If the job is important enough to get a human being to do it, give the person a title that describes what his or her contribution is. Better still, have people clean up after themselves.
The same goes for people’s titles that include “services” such as “marketing services.” Employees’ titles should not indicate that they are subservient to other employees. It’s very easy to remove the word “services” to attract an intelligent doer rather than a dumb waiter. To keep them, remove the attitude that put the title there in the first place.
A company’s political underwear is showing when it creates “support” titles. The group these people “support” has the political power. With nowhere to move up, they’ll move out, preferably where they’re wearing the pants.
Remember: It’s better to be an athlete than an athletic supporter.
Professional Reviews
Midwest Book Review 1: Can mega corporations continue to do business as usual and survive?
"America's Corporate Brain Drain," - a serious look at a serious issue, Can mega corporations continue to do business as usual and survive?
"America's Corporate Brain Drain," A work several years in creation is now available for review and due out to the bookstores August 2008.
Never one to hold back, author Babs Ryan, an international business expert and innovator, has bad news for America's big corporations. They are losing their creative and innovative top talent. Ryan chronicles issue after issue, making the case that most large American companies simply don't understand that "flavor of the month" business fads (think Six Sigma, Project management, CRM management, and a slew of other ideas) mask hidden weaknesses. Corporations, especially big ones are largely inept at how to innovate, to properly reward the innovators, and to recognize and act on incompetence in leadership. The best and brightest leave to start their own businesses or pursue their careers in small business, where they can use their ability and skills to find fulfillment.
Case after case, industry by industry, from CEO's to line managers, Ryan looks at and deconstructs the large American corporation, carefully describing how it rewards the mediocre, shuns innovation and creativity (because it threatens jobs and the status quo), and is quite competent in its self destructive behavior, and the uncanny ability to reward exactly the wrong people.
Where is innovation and creation happening. According to Ryan, these are characteristic of small business and start ups formed by the capable, but fed up people leaving the mega corporations. Small business thrives on providing their customers products and services that meet and exceed the customers expectations and desires.
This book is not for the sensitive. It confronts the comfortable in favor of what really works. Many will find this book and its ideas an ego challenge and hard to accept. Read it with an open mind. While Ryan seemingly mocks big business practices, she does it because she grieves about what is being systematically destroyed - large corporation viability and capability and the leadership to hew a necessary and profitable existence through innovation and creation. And she doesn't mean a new version of the same old thing. She means new stuff, new ideas, new ways of solving problems.
Do yourself and your organization a big favor. Read this book.
Midwest Book Review 2
"America’s Corporate Brain Drain" is a look at the changing face of business and why it may be related to incompetent management of America's largest corporations. The masses of America, which used to support these massive businesses, are slowly losing faith in them and putting their faith elsewhere. An expose of the countless mistakes big business have made in recent years, "America's Corporate Brain Drain" is highly recommended for those who don't want to follow suit with the stupidest mistakes.
Must Read for Corporate CEOs - -and Every lLne Manager
Brain Drain is required reading for every serious student of business -- starting with today's top corporate CEO's and continuing right down the line to every decision maker.
Anyone looking to engage or remain prosperous in our global economy would be wise to heed Ryan's advise: focus those employees who contribute to the bottom-line and shed dead weight - now!
Through Ryan's travels, readers evolve as case-by-case, example after example, we learn why areas of the world, such as Europe and Asia, are advancing with lightning speed beyond the U.S.
Why? Because of a paradigm shift: the willingness to integrate technology wherever possible and maximize human capital. Simple.
If China's brilliance and universal appeal during the 2008 Olympic Opening Ceremony did not send a wake-up call to us all, nothing will.
If attitude is everything, our prevailing attitudes here in the U.S. need to change - dramatically, and soon.
Meanwhile, Corporate America is stuck in its ancient hierarchies and rigid, entitled-thinking.
Ryan's Brain Drain thesis is dark and provocative; it will not resonate well with those who are unable to change or face the rigors of our emerging global economy.
