The Ford Motor Company, the nation’s No. 2 automaker, has to change the way it does business to achieve a turnaround, the chief executive, William Clay Ford Jr., says in an e-mail message to employees.
“The business model that sustained us for decades is no longer sufficient to sustain profitability,” Mr. Ford wrote in the message Friday.
The same section of the New York Times headlined:
A Venerable Newsweekly Changes Its Stripes
“For most of the 20th century, under the influence of its founder, Henry R. Luce, Time magazine spoke in a single authoritative voice that reflected the world back to its readers…
“We’ve traditionally been a mirror, and to me, we more and more have to be a lamp,” Mr. Stengel said, invoking the title of the study of Romantic literature by M. H. Abrams. “As a lamp, you’re shining a light on something.”
“It’s about having an idea that is different,” Mr. Stengel said. “I want to have people talk about what we’re writing about.”
Isn’t that what you want? To be someone different, shining a lamp on something different, that good people talk about?
Where do old notions like “duplicate this system” or “everyone will want this” fit here?
Doing the same old same old for the last few decades hasn’t helped Ford Motor in today’s marketplace. Time magazine too, knows it’s time to change. They want to be “different” now, be talked about. A lamp that shines light on things, not just a mirror of what is, like before.
Aren’t we, as people who love our thing, in a good position to be that lamp to others? A lamp that shines on something we love that is new, different, and has been helpful in our daily lives?
The Time article also says “They have to figure out what they’re really good at, and why they exist.” Pretty much what each of us has to figure out, yes?
Indeed we have to play to our strenghts – not to the upline or the crossline or the company strengths – but OUR own strengths, which is usually something we love as well…
Wow… being a ‘lamp’ rather than a ‘mirror’ provides valuable insight into how we make the business ‘our own’ in the first place.
And Kim, your comment that we have to play to OUR strengths, provides the brilliant inspiration that having THAT to share with prospects and downline means we simply get to acknowledge and shed light on THEIR strengths….showing them the path to success with THEIR business. How cool and FUN is that?!??!!!
Thanks much,
~~Mary K
I don’t want to be a lamp. I want to be a Blowtorch!
Indeed…blowtorch or lamp, it’s all about shining a light on something, not everything, and looking for some, not everyone.
🙂