The Upwardly Mobile

Seth Godin wrote a great little post last Friday on the differences between fitting in and standing out. Although Seth doesn’t state it explicitly, the differences in mind set of those who seek to fit in and those who seek to stand out make up a significant portion of a company’s culture and have startling implications to productivity and the bottom line. Let’s examine three global companies to see the impact of this corporate culture ideal on a firm’s outlook:

1. General Motors: GM’s culture relies heavily on a motivation to fit in. Employees at GM make decisions on the basis of what has been done in the past, resulting in lack-luster product designs, poor quality, and such poor financial performance that the company had to borrow billions from the government. Most cars look like poor rehashings of previous models and tend to be feature-heavy, benefit-light products without much thought to the end consumer. While the occasional innovative product may make it through, GM’s overall ideology is clear from looking at its products: copy an old design, add a few poorly-designed features, and push it to the consumer with heavy advertising.
2. Google: Google, on the other hand, seems to make many of its decisions based on creativity or novelty. Products it designs and companies it purchases are new, different, and often unproven, and there is little emphasis on fitting in in the traditional corporate sense. Google’s philosophy results in some strikingly useful and innovative products that end-users really appreciate. The challenge Google faces, however, is that such products are rarely proven financially. Google continues, for example, to loose money on YouTube. While Google can, and I suspect will, turn YouTube around, the ideology does create a volatility that Google must counterbalance.
3. General Electric: GE, on the other hand, seems to represent a hybridized model. Like GM’s ideology, GE’s GE Way places a heavy emphasis on copying what others have done previously. Unlike GM, however, GE doesn’t copy every old idea. GE follows the Art of What Works. GE brings its people together to help improve their performance across all significant metrics. If a plant in one region is having a problem with sourcing, for example, the plant manager will travel to another plant, either for the same product or a different one, that has an excellent sourcing record and learn what works there. The idea is that there is no best person our group to follow or fit in with. There are only leading practices to be implemented. This allows GE to continue to innovate while building on the practices they already know to be effective.

These examples have powerful implications for every business. Spend some time thinking about your business. Do your firm’s executives and employees simply do what they’ve done in the past, or do they look for examples of what actually works and seek to innovate and improve upon them?