Supermarket recycling in the UK shows more societal differences

European consumers are far more aware of issues such as recycling and global warming than US consumers are. They are prepared to make real changes in their lives to meet the needs. while energy use in the US continues to climb per capita, in Europe it is dropping. Supermarkets in the UK are moving towards compostable packaging in the case of Sainsbury, or reuse of shopping bags in the case of Tesco. No one in Europe seriously challenges the idea that gasoline taxes need to be high to keep prices as a disincentive to use. Meanwhile in the US, the idea that prices should be low is the prevailing philosophy.

In our wish to make all cultures look alike, we gloss over deep-seated differences.

"Today, in the West, there are no good excuses for religious belief - unless we think that ignorance, reaction and sentimentality are good excuses. This is of course not so in the East, where, we acknowledge, almost every living citizen in many huge and populous countries is intimately defined by religious belief. The excuses, here, are very persuasive; and we duly accept that 'faith' - recently and almost endearingly defined as 'the desire for the approval of supernatural beings' - is a world-historical force and a world-historical actor."

Now this was by Martin Amis in The Guardian newspaper in England. In the US, or in many other countries it would be an outrageous statement, but in the UK it was greeted with apathy. The fact that two countries may be English speaking and share many traditions does not mean that people think alike. Watching a British TV program, I am always struck by the differences in pace, script, and ways in which even sex and violence are treated. Clearly, the two countries are different. If this is so, how different are countries where language, religious tradition, literature, education, and politics are completely different?

Simplification is essential, but dangerous

Situations are complex. They are often too complex for individuals to grasp. Whether we are examining the situation in the Middle East or the market for flash memory, it is incredibly convoluted. So management consultants, academics and journalists work hard to simplify the situation so that people can understand the issues. As a result, politicians, executives, and voters often think that the issues are simple. So we are caught in a "Catch 22." If we do not simplify, the issue is incomprehensible and often goes unadressed. If we do simplify, the problem can be tackled, but later it can come back to haunt us. Sometimes even the people who do the simplification become victims and start seeing it as easy.

While we may have to deal with a situation by simplifying it, we need to recognize that there is often much complexity which lies behind the issue.

So H-P follows ENRON into the corporate lack of ethics Hall of Fame

One of the interesting things about corporate and government life may not be that people have become less ethical, but that there is less sense of shame about it. How can Patricia Dunn, the Chairman of the Board of H-P, use people who pose as individual Directors to get their phone records? It seems that much as companies such as ENRON, Peregrine Systems, and many others saw nothing wrong with what they did, so too companies feel OK about options backdating, or channel stuffing, or null trades. Elected representatives see nothing wrong with voting for measures which will enable them to profit from, for example, the sale of land. Perhaps people have always been out for themselves, but the constraints on dishonorable behavior have grown less.

Pattern recognition skills rather than industry expertise

Industry expertise is very dangerous. When someone runs a business on the basis of what has been already done in that industry, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and the business suffers. The most innovative thinking in an industry often comes from someone outside the industry, but who has worked in a number of industries and has learned pattern recognition. It took Lou Gerstner to turn IBM around. An industry insider could never have done it.

So what does it take first to turnaround a business?

Some twenty years ago I inherited a division in trouble. It was a frozen food business which my predecessor had pushed my corporation to buy. As its boss, he kept on expanding the number of products it sold, and the geography in which it sold them. As I saw back then, you cannot sell your way to profitability if your costs are out of control. The first thing to do is to control your costs. This business had become spread too thinly, so withdrawing and cutting costs was the first prerequisite to turning around the business. This is not easy of course, and having had to do it several times since, I recognize that experience is important.

Once you have successfully cut costs, and redefined the business model so that it is possible to make money, you can start to think about growth. Business expansion can only come after all else is stable and you are not sure that you are simply going to put yourself back where you were when you inherited the business.