“No More Business as Usual, Kill That Snake”
“If you see a snake, just kill it — don’t appoint a committee on snakes”.
The above quote from Ross Perot was born out of the frustration he experienced as a result of his time on the board of directors at General Motors (GM). Perot had sold his company, Electronic Data Systems (EDS) to GM in 1984 for $2.6 billion. As a part of the deal Perot became the largest single GM shareholder and garnered a seat on the board.
In short order he became terribly frustrated and did not hesitate to speak out about what he termed “GM’s bloated bureaucracy”. He was incredulous at the amount of time GM would spend to make, what to Perot, were simple decisions.
Some commentators said that the motto at EDS was “ready, fire, aim” while at GM it was “ready, aim, aim, aim”. The sense being that GM was unable to pull the trigger.
One of the key reasons for the purchase of EDS by GM was a desire on the part of the auto giant to revitalize itself. The company had become stagnated and was slow to embrace new technology.
Perot was once quoted as saying, “Revitalizing General Motors is like teaching an elephant to tap-dance.”
So, how can we implement a culture that addresses the issue of indecision? More bluntly, how can we create a snake killing culture? I would argue…
