Reinventing America's Business Model
A Super Bold Win!
Today Americans supporting opposing teams Gathered Together!
Coming to America
New to Los Angeles and America, two memories seared my childhood mind: the endless ribbons of freeways and the ubiquitous Golden Arches. Symbols of a nation hurtling forward, fueled by industry. "In America, anything is possible," my mother's mantra echoed, painting a picture of boundless opportunity.
Fast forward five decades. The American dream seems tarnished. Loneliness, anxiety, and despair climb at alarming rates. Our political landscape fractures, both sides lamenting democracy's demise.
But amidst the division, might a solution lie hidden in plain sight in the very cornerstones of American economic industry and innovation.
The challenges are immense, but the potential, like the open road stretching before us, beckons. It is time to rewrite the American narrative, not just with asphalt and arches, but with the well-being of all at its heart.
That would constitute a “Super Bowl’d” win for America.
Lessons from Business
Peter Drucker and Peter Senge, two twentieth century management titans of thought, dissected the DNA of America's corporate rise to reveal two vital strands, Industry's Engine and Reinvention:
Industry’s Engine: In 1954 the post-war America economy soared. Peter Drucker in his landmark The Practice of Management ignited a revolution. He introduced Management by Objectives (MBO) - ensuring that the aims of any enterprise were clear and that all activities aligned towards those aims.He later elaborated upon three attributes that must be plainly understood and aligned: the business’ customers, the unique value the enterprise offers to those customers, and the operations that profitably produce that value. This was the engine driving American industry.
Reinvention: A few decades later, Peter Senge offered a recipe for businesses to chart a course through a constantly evolving world. Enterprises that excelled in Drucker's MBO performance model must continuously adapt or devolve into the dustpan of obsolescence. In The Fifth Discipline Senge described how continuous learning, innovation and rebirth are driven through shared ownership. Senge’s principles endure – among the top ten US companies by market cap today (including Apple, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft), only one existed in 1954 when Drucker penned his precepts.
Mastering organizational reinvention, as Peter Senge suggests, is no easy feat. With Microsoft beginning to falter in the early-2000s, newly appointed CEO Satya Nadella faced immense challenges that often accompany business maturity. Defying the forces that typically pull corporations towards obsolescence, Nadella’s rare reinvention success highlights the profound insights Senge offers.
Under Nadella’s leadership, the tech firm took risks to move beyond Windows and Office. With clarity and shared ownership, they shifted to a subscription model with increasingly collaborative features, cloud-based servers, and they invested in Artificial Intelligence research, development, and integration. Two decades after facing potential decline, Microsoft again holds the title of the world's largest market cap company. Remarkably, it achieved this feat at a stage in its corporate life cycle where many others, like Blockbuster and BlackBerry, fail to heed internal and external signals.
What does this mean for the broader American enterprise?
Principles of industry and innovation could drive not just the march of economic growth, but also collective well-being and a more sustainable civil society.
The Prophecy of History
Like corporations, empires crumble, their reigns finite. History whispers this truth throughout the 2,000-year saga of Western power. From the Roman coliseum to the Dutch spice trade, the rise and fall of empires mirror the ocean's dance. They rise with the tide of ambition, crest on waves of conquest, but inevitably face the ebb of dissent and the storms of change. But unlike the physics that forecast rising and falling tides, corporate and national cycles are shaped by the metaphysics of human genius and hubris. In his oft quoted line from The Sun Also Rises, Hemmingway reminds us that decline is not linear but also not without warnings, instead “gradually and then suddenly.”
Are we then doomed? Perhaps not.
Rebirth of a Nation
Every so often, even an enterprise must revisit its founding vision and values.
In the land of possibilities that my mother regularly named, this empire, like the rare corporation, might turn to a new operating model to better achieve our founding declaration. America has done it before.
A century prior to Drucker’s manifesto for American business, Abraham Lincoln reminded the nation of her “Ancient Faith.” After losing his congressional seat and largely out of the political spotlight, Lincoln’s 1854 Peoria speech marked his ascendent return to active politics. In it he forcefully articulated the national need to repudiate the enslavement of fellow humans.
How might the nation now urgently turn away from loneliness, anxiety, and despair?
Paying attention to signals often barely audible, perhaps we can learn from the faith of the first Americans.
In Becoming Kin, author Patty Krawec suggests that old ways of Indigenous kinship can help us imagine a different future. Krawec asks:
What would it look like to remember that we are related? How might we become better relatives to one another, to the land, and to movements for solidarity?
Braiding together historical, scientific, and cultural analysis, Indigenous ways of knowing, and the vivid threads of communal memory, like Ida B. Wells (social leader - journalist and suffragist), Nadella (corporate leader), and Lincoln (public leader), Krawec crafts a forceful call to "unforget" our history.
A more structured framework for the collective citizenry might include:
Recognize that we can hold on to the founding vision while embracing a new operating model.
Connect with our shared humanity to find the points of agreement among the maximum number of stakeholders - building coalitions and narratives that simultaneously buoy diverse views.
Point our investments towards shared long-term outcomes while measuring indicators of progress.
On a day of national ritual when fans of opposing teams gather for cheer, chips and chicken wings, I’m reminded that we can win together.
Should America hope to remain relevant into the next century, now is time for another national pivot – one that requires shared ownership.