What We Told The Soviets

Before the wall came down, before Yeltsin was elected, and while Gorbechov was still in power, I was invited to visit Russia with my brother. We were there to give a series of seminars on the free market and to help the victims of the Chernobyl reactor disaster.

Passing through security in the Pan Am JFKTerminal, Dan Rather and CBS news declared Desert Storm had started. I gulped and boarded the flight to Moscow...Heart of the Evil Empire.

For the next 6 weeks Mark and I barnstormed the USSR giving thousands of Soviets the essential message of free market capitalism. It was Mark's gig but we worked like a couple of tag-team wrestlers.

We spoke to audiences of 500-1,500. Most were educators or engineers. None were in business. Business was illegal and anti-social...they called it "speculating".  "Speculators" were considered something less than bottom-feeding sucker fish.  My how times have changed.

To be concise and clear we presented to them The Ten Commandments of Business.

But instead of the traditional Soviet approach of sitting behind a desk on stage and ominously reading the lecture into the microphone to the hundreds assembled who were all taking copious notes in their bound diaries, we disposed notes, of coat and tie, and microphone. We walked the stage, both peppering the audience with our questions, and fielding their questions. Interacting with an audience was unheard of. We did it. They loved it. Nobody left before the day was done.

Time has now past those heady days into memories and journals. 

But the Ten Commandments of Business still apply.  Strange that even US business leaders frequently and perilously neglect them.

So in the next few posts I'll reiterate them one-by-one.

Commandment Number One:The most important element of a business is the Customer.

No customer=no business.  "Dot-com"-ers and their professors forgot about that. Zambians trying to sell cooper also forget it. Bechtel engineers find it hard to believe...or to stomach.

Example: I spent 10 years at Bechtel in management and organization development beginning in the construction department of the Refinery and Chemical division. Proctor and Gamble[P&G] had been a prime client but we had no projects in more than 4 years despite having done excellent work in the past and despite P&G continuing to build but using other firms. 

We were now proposing on building new project to build a plant in Canada. But we were nervous about winning the job because of some "undefined unhappiness" on the part of P&G. I sought to understand why. The last job had been completed on-time and within budget: a clear victory for both Bechtel and P&G. Why then no follow on work. I dug deeper. Speaking to P&G I learned that they had developed a hatred for the Bechtel Site Manager and decided that he was a permanent but unspoken impediment.  We removed the impediment and won more P&G awards.

We had been victorious on the project but alienated the client. We had no customer and we won no more work until we solved the customer problem.

The most important element of a business is the customer; ignore it at your peril. Just like K-Mart is doing.

Next posting will discuss:

1. The Biggest Mistake businesses make and

2. The Most Expensive event in a companies history.