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I managed an automobile repair shop under the name of one of the
major oil companies for
twenty three years. It was a complex contractual arrangement but
essentially, we were a branded
outlet. Early to mid-eighties were relatively good times.
Technology was certainly complicatingthings, but all in all it
wasnt too bad for the auto repair industry. Though I have a few
friends
who might feel some offence at this statement, I regret that the
overall quality of American cars
produced during this era was far less than it could have been,
which made the repairs side of
things more regular besides more complicated.
Coming out of the eighties and into the early nineties as
contracts were periodically reassessed
and upgraded or renegotiated (a more polite way of saying get
ready to be screwed) anoperational word began to be hammered into
the lower end managers from the big boys at the
top ... you know the ones you seldom ever really have any
contact with but take it upon
themselves to dictate how it is that the operations of your
business should be handled. And notbecause they have any real
experience in these situations (though some may have limited
experience) but rather they have studied the models and have
listened to their efficiency
experts and have determined for you what is the best way to
relate to your customers without
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actually having a relationship with them. You see, your
customers are not really their customers;
your customers (that you have spent years developing a trust and
rapport with) are only numbers
to them. OH ... I know their rhetoric would not make it sound
this way, but how many of themrealize a common time invested
bonding with these they would call customers and in manycases
friends. I dare say ... none. My customers and my relationships,
the ones coming across
the driveway were only one thing to these progressively higher
echelons of businessadministration ... numbers.
It was during this time that the need to become more efficient
became the mantra of the big boys,but it was not a matter of better
serving the customer which I had always been taught and
believed was the reason for being in business, but rather to
make it possible to grab a higher
percentage of the gross that may be realized. Of course as more
numbers of individuals were
expected to now come across the drive, more profit was expected
to be made, thus justifying thelower percentage a small business
person could expect. But what the hell there will be more
customers, and surely streamlining your operation would cut
costs and make it possible not to
lose the net that had been realized prior. After all, many if
not most of the less efficient
operations will eventually be forced out of the market driving
more customers to the survivors.
There is a certain limited logic to this model. But it falls way
short of what is a human model.Business ... as it has evolved in
the twentieth and twenty-first centuries ... is a far cry from
what
Adam Smith originally perceived. To Smith, who in fact was a
moralist over and above being an
economist, compassion was the foundation for capitalism. I know
that sounds strange to many,
but a minimal amount of research will bear this out. To Smith
the purpose of the market was toassess and recognize the needs and
desires of a society and thereby adapt itself to meeting those
needs. Thus through meeting the actual wants and wishes of
society, the customer is served and a
reasonable profit can be realized. Everyone is served.
Adam Smith understood that a capitalistic society could not
function as a free society unlessthe compassion motive was the
foundation of the system. Well ... weve come a long way fromthat
baby!!!.
Over the years, and this has been a slow but progressive raising
of the market temperature (Ithink were boiling now ready for
consumption) the system somewhere along the path diverged
from its moral imperative (some would argue it never had one).
The market no longer serves
society, but the (choke) customer is now only another commodity
in the expansive andevermore expanding dominion of corporatized
culture. Business no longer serves the needs of
the society, let alone the individuals that make up that
society, but the smaller parts only exist to
submit to and serve that economic structure that evermore
demands that greater part of the gross,
and as it may be allowed, ultimately devours all it can. We are
told what we need, we are toldwhat it is we want, we are
psychologically probed and manipulated to believe what it is
they
want us to believe, not for our benefit, not to serve, but to
consume, and increase the net, but not
that which we may enjoy and take comfort in, but what becomes
the assets of the money
managers pulling the strings.
It makes little difference whether there is one corporation
accomplishing this or numerous onesof varying states of economic
status, the effect is all the same. Compassion and serving the
needs
