A true story. To protect the innocent – and the writer – I’ll use no names.
The president of a large, multi-national engineering and construction firm decided to attract more contracts by reducing customers’ risks. A sound decision, yes?
It was what he did (which was to offer fixed-price contracts instead of cost-plus contracts) and how he did it (by developing his people and by continuous process improvement) that got him fired - even though the move was showing every sign of success.
So why was he dismissed? The answer lies in that ol’ stereotype of the corporation as an externality-generating machine.