Susan

As member of a professional staff, I wonder at how our corporate leadership cannibalizes their most successful and productive business in order to finance a manic rate of growth. We, successful and highly profitable for decades before our purchase and designation as "the flagship" of this corporation, paid the bills for numerous ill-considered ventures. Sadly, when our healthy cash-flow was insufficient to cover so many poor risks, carnage ensued.

Executives outside of our operation dictated layoffs and eliminated key positions. Some responsibilities went unanswered, and others transferred to already over-utilized staff members. When a survey revealed long-term customers' perception (awareness) of the decline in value and service, corporate leaders reacted, cutting more positions and adding more to the load of struggling employees! As organizational memory of extraordinary performance fades, new leadership's acceptance of mediocre as "good enough" is the new norm. In a speech to a hard-working, cash-producing staff from whom leadership has taken many benefits and withheld annual raises or bonuses during years of of healthy earnings, a corporate executive had the audacity to tell a little story about a problem with his wife's new Cadillac! Clearly there's no concern about how the money is earned as long as it keeps coming in. Almost all of our strong leaders have quit or been fired for refusing to dilute quality to enhance bottom line. Executives are insulated from truth now, "they don't want to hear it anyway."

The original "charge a premium price and then exceed expectations" remains sound, but "discount our price, reduce customary value, and stack the bill with ancillary service charges" prevails. The "exceed expectations" culture is taking root elsewhere, nurtured by our exiled leaders. We know how it's done, why go down with these vultures?