Leadership Lost

Count me as one of those who had high hopes for President Bush. Before sharing my disappointment with Mr. Bush I'll offer that I do hold in spite people with an "I told you so" attitude. There was much to hope for when Bush took office and I have found that people with loud voices and wagging fingers are oft long on complaining and remarkably silent when asked for constructive ideas.

That said, I am bitterly disappointed with a great number of decisions the Bush administration have made. I can't imagine how the Iraq war could have been handled any worse. It was based on flimsy, and a likely dishonest representation of the facts as justification. Let me say that I agree with the idea to topple Saddam, violently if need be, but strongly disagree with misleading the American people into supporting the war. Colin Powell exemplified my approach, which exhausted diplomacy--however ridiculous it seemed. The diplomacy was never for Saddam's benefit but for the world. We should have been clear and focused with the American public and the world that this was a mission to topple Saddam. Period. It would have been far wiser to seek a coalition, not so much for the invasion, but for the stabilizing U.N. force to sweep in afterwards.

Once inside Iraq we didn't move nearly fast enough to reestablish basic services to win the hearts and minds. We didn't create clear "sweep zones" where we effectively turned over the more stable areas to the new provisional Iraqi government. And of course we made the fatal mistake of dismissing the Iraqi army rather than repatriating it under a new Iraqi command.

Now we are faced with what I can only imagine is an inevitable civil war brought on by the long-suffering struggle between Suni and Shiite Muslims. Moving quickly and decisively would have done much to dispel the tensions that pulled people back into their old habits.

On the diplomatic front Bush failed to capitalize on the liberation of the Shiite population from Saddam's persecution. Handled better this could have gone far to renew ties with Iran, especially now that their leader has revealed himself as insecure and dangerously uninformed in the ways of the West. I wonder how much of the diatribes we're now hearing from this country today could have been avoided by making international "hay" from the Shiite liberation and to show the world the America is not at war with Islam. In this we have also failed miserably.

The capstone of this grief are the horrific events at Abu Grehb prison and more recent reports of what (as of this writing) appear to have been a massacre of innocent Iraqi civilians by U.S. troops. Our proud men and women in uniform have the best discipline and training of any force in the world. American soldiers simply don't just snap! I can only surmise that leadership and morale must be on razor's edge for events like this to occur.

What President Bush has been missing all along is honesty, planning, and savvy. The American people to this day are rarely told the accurate and complete story of life on the ground in Iraq. Instead we hear about virtually meaningless structural "victories" of governmental organization. This information means about as much to me as it does to the average Iraqi citizen. Planning was and is very poor. As for savvy--if there was any question in the minds of your average poor Muslim man on the street anywhere in the world as to American intentions--we have outright handed them the ideological stick with which they will try to beat us. This alone is a setback in American policy interests that will take many years to eradicate.

I am grieved to think that Iraq may be a "Vietnam", but for different--sadder reasons. This was not a military standoff. Iraq is a failure of leadership, focus, and follow-through. It tells the world that after a truly jaw-dropping display of force projection that Americans will fail to follow through and devolve into confusion. After years spent telling the world we have a grand plan for the welfare of all mindkind a display like this would leave anyone asking "OK--So where's the plan?" The tragedy is that we really do have a good plan for how a free people can live. The bungling in Iraq will close the ears of many of the people who would benefit most from the message.

Like every American, and perhaps much of the world, I want the U.S.A. to be a good guy with a shiny silver star. It will take a long time and a lot of bridge-building to recoup that image.

Crushing the Competition in the Automotive Industry

Any current headline will tell you that the auto industry is doubled over and writhing around on the floor grimmacing in pain. Without a clear differentiator the major auto companies whack each other over the head competing with ever-larger rebates.

One area of innovation no one has been brave enough to tackle is the sales and delivery pipeline. What is the one thing universally hated and reviled above nearly all other earthly creations? The car salesman! I suppose there are many reasons to hate car salesmen but one sticks out in my mind: these guys train and drill relentlessly, like Navy SEALs, to perfect techniques to manipulate and coerce a hapless customer into a purchase decision that may not be in their best interest. Since the average consumer is so ill-equipped for this kind of hard-nosed "negotiation", and the bargaining table so stacked in the dealer's favor, most people come away feeling taken advantage of--and they're probably correct!

What real value does the car salesman offer? For the short term blip of a sale today people often wind up in "upside-down" car loans that hurt their ability to buy a new car later. They don't benefit the car maker. The salesman-based business model is tired and its time to get rid of it. Disintermediation is the new world order! Kill the middlemen!

Now consider what would happen if a brave car manufacturer got rid of the whole dealer/salesperson model and went with a straight store model. Go to the mall and see and test-drive sample models but order and buy either online or at a kiosk in the store. Salaried staff that don't work on commission can help facilitate these functions. The service departments can either be owned by the car maker or licensed out to certified franchise operators.

Whouldn't that be a radical change? Saturn almost got to that point, but not quite. Even so, for a time the Saturn dealer experience was very highly rated by consumers.

Let's see who'll be first to be brave enough to tamper with the sacred cow of the car salesman business model!

Strange British Customs in the US

Do you ever wonder about seemingly counter-intuitive customs and practices we accept and take for granted every day? I do. Two come to mind that seem unrelated but share a common point of origin: they trace back to our colonial British past.

The first odd custom is that of grass. Lawns, specifically. Why do we all work so hard to surround our suburban homes with golf-course green lawns? Fact of the matter is that over large swaths of the country (my home in Texas for example) grass doesn't grow naturally very well. I spend hundreds of dollars a year on water bills and to pay a lawnmowing service, just so I can have a lawn! Where did all this "lawn" idea come from anyway? England! Well in England its cool and damp--great conditions for rolling carpets of emerald-green lawns. In Texas its extremely dry and the summer heat is punnishing. Basically this is ideal climate for--well, rocks. Yes, stones do very well in Texas.

I've just about had it up to here spending good money forcing nature to replicate a small patch of the British Isles on my Texas property. Think how much time, money, and water I'd save just letting Texas be Texas and landscape with rocks and a few bits of that tall range grass that grows here. It'd still look great, but it would stand out from all the neighbors and their 9th hole lawns.

Ok, on to my next British colonial hold-over custom/pet-peeve. Suits. Why is it that we presume a gentleman must be wearing a suit to be considered well-dressed in a formal environment? Once again this is a hold-over from our English heritage. Most of the year its pretty cool over in London, so yeah, wearing a good suit and tie would reasonably define well-dressed for a gentleman. Fast-forward to post-colonial U.S., where more than 1/2 the territory suffers long, high-heat and/or high-humidity summers, and a suit looks completly rediculous, perhaps even dangrous to one's health. I mean c'mon! London is 6 degrees latitude north of Montreal Canada! Sure, I'd be fine wearing a suite in Canada. Not too many >100-degree >95% humidity days in Montreal. If there were people would be dying--probably because they're wearing suits!

I think in hot climates we should adopt something like the Latin guayabera, a traditional and distinctive dress shirt, worn without a jacket and not tucked into ones trousers. Air flows freely through it and there's nothing contstraining your neck.

I can't reshape culture--only pop stars can do that. I can make small individual choices to insert some reason into the personal decisions I make to adopt customs, or to adapt them to my local region. Rocks. I like rocks. Don't need to water or mow rocks. Rocks don't promote weeds. Yeah, I like rocks.