Originally posted: Sunday, August 22, 2004
If I was in charge… companies would have to publish thier financials.
Every day you hear or read about another company going belly-up or laying off 10% of thier employees, or going through a "restructuring" or filing for bankruptcy protection. Why? Because they do not not what they are doing! Aren’t the people being paid rediculous amounts of money to run the company running the company?!?! NO! They are skating that thin red and black line trying to make it look like they are profitable and growing, when in fact they are trying to keep investors, customers and employees from leaving to go go GOOD companies.
I’ve worked at more companies than I care to admit, and more often than not the people in charge have NO IDEA what goes on day-to-day in the operation. Instead, they are off making deals and redecorating their offices so they can look professional for the clients/investors/employees they are trying to convince to join the company. How often do you actually see the owner or president of a company at the front counter? Unless you are a small business owner, or you are there for a photo-opportunity, the answer is NEVER!
Every once in a great while, you’ll see a couple of photos of Mike Eisner with a Disneyland cap on walking through Disneyland talking to cast members and pretending to care. The same goes for all major companies. The presidents and CEO’s (and often even low-level managers) couldn’t actually work on the line, build the product, help customers or even ring up a charge on the cash register. Why? Because they are too busy trying to show off how smart they are[n’t] and suckering people to get involved.
If I was in charge I would make every company in the United State post their financial data on the internet. That means they post how much they are paying thier "leaders", how much they are spending on research and development, taxes, building costs, bonuses and all of the costs connected to the company. By all companies sharing the same information, they will have to compete based on quality and service, and potential employees will have a much better understanding of how good a company is before they get sucked in to yet another crappy company.