BBC NEWS | Business | British firms 'lack ambition'
The poor productivity of British firms is often the result of a culture of low aspirations on the part of management, a study has concluded.
The report, by The Work Foundation, also found British firms have been too prone to management fads and quick fixes which have achieved little...
...We may have a strong economy, but take a British firm with the same number of people and equipment as an American firm, and the British one will produce 15% less than the American.
The best companies - with ambitious management - show that high performance is achievable.
But it won't be the result of pushing the workers too hard, or sweating the machines.
Management needs to concentrate across the board on staff, customers, shareholders and innovation.
The Foundation says there's little point in an Atkins Diet approach - trying to make an extreme effort at one thing. Good firms tend to be good at all of them.
Well I can only comment on one firm and I would have to agree with the statement that it lacks ambition and that mangement as a whole is one dimensionsal (with the odd notable exception).
Culture, whether it be in an organisation or Britain as a whole is somewhat backward looking. It tends to focus on the negative, i.e. what are weaknesses are and how we can 'p[atch the up', rather than being ambitious and trying to take over the world. How Britain ever ran an Empire (despite the fact I am totally opposed to such a thing) I wil never know.
I think Billy Bragg expressed it best (and I'm quotting from my dodgy memory so forgive the paraphrasing) - "We are a nation of old timers, shopkeepers and clock watchers". Or maybe that should be administrators, bureaucrats and hooligans? Either way productivity, efficiency and effectiveness don't really get a look in.
One of the things Tom Peters suggests in his new book, is that European firms (as opposed to American ones) don't destroy and re-invent enough. We aren't willing to take risks and then abandon failure. Maybe that's true and perhaps that gets to the heart of the problem; the ambition, the entreuprenuerial spirit just isn't there.