48 hours after the 59-0 loss to New England, which the team's owner called "the low point in franchise history," Jeff Fisher apparently feels good enough to crack jokes at the team's expense:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C6HiSOlquc
Very bad timing.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
My former employer, Actus Lend Lease, turned ten years old this month.
I was there during almost the exact period of time where the business transitioned from a fast-moving entrepreneurial creature to a slower, more methodical, much more process-oriented mature organization. In many organizations that undergo this change, a bit of the entrepreneurial spirit still remains in pockets of the organization. In Actus' case, it got purged completely from the system...a hidden but significant problem.
So now, the company faces an uncertain future. Should it march into Canada and try to win public-private partnership business there, as is referenced in the video? Nah. Merging with another company or two in the space, getting big, and attacking local and regional public-private partnership business within the United States (outside of the military) is the way to go. A radical organizational change is needed to pursue the business they're going after, in my meaningless-then and even-more-meaningless-now opinion.
Another interesting option is what I always thought of as the 'adjacent-development' strategy. Around these massive MHPI communities Actus builds are large quantities of under-utilized land that could be acquired for dimes on the dollar...purchasing this land and using it to provide relevant services for the military families in the community, as well as nearby, would open up all kinds of opportunities.
This is a company that's not going away, primarily because it owns cash-generating 50-year contracts with the majority of the term remaining. But it could be so much more.
I enjoyed the majority of my time there, and as Marc Sierra suggests in his part of the video, there was always something new to learn - a very positive attribute of the organization.
My own company is progressing like it is in many respects because of lessons learned from my time at Actus, some good and some bad. I think the fact that I even check the Lend Lease website at all, from time to time, or still remain distantly interested in the operations and strategy of the company even now is an indicator the company did something right, though.
While they haven't won any new business in quite a while (the PAL deal was done long before I even left the company, despite the representation of the linked piece), there's no reason why they can't get it going again. It's just going to take a little bit of getting outside the company's comfort zone.
I was there during almost the exact period of time where the business transitioned from a fast-moving entrepreneurial creature to a slower, more methodical, much more process-oriented mature organization. In many organizations that undergo this change, a bit of the entrepreneurial spirit still remains in pockets of the organization. In Actus' case, it got purged completely from the system...a hidden but significant problem.
So now, the company faces an uncertain future. Should it march into Canada and try to win public-private partnership business there, as is referenced in the video? Nah. Merging with another company or two in the space, getting big, and attacking local and regional public-private partnership business within the United States (outside of the military) is the way to go. A radical organizational change is needed to pursue the business they're going after, in my meaningless-then and even-more-meaningless-now opinion.
Another interesting option is what I always thought of as the 'adjacent-development' strategy. Around these massive MHPI communities Actus builds are large quantities of under-utilized land that could be acquired for dimes on the dollar...purchasing this land and using it to provide relevant services for the military families in the community, as well as nearby, would open up all kinds of opportunities.
This is a company that's not going away, primarily because it owns cash-generating 50-year contracts with the majority of the term remaining. But it could be so much more.
I enjoyed the majority of my time there, and as Marc Sierra suggests in his part of the video, there was always something new to learn - a very positive attribute of the organization.
My own company is progressing like it is in many respects because of lessons learned from my time at Actus, some good and some bad. I think the fact that I even check the Lend Lease website at all, from time to time, or still remain distantly interested in the operations and strategy of the company even now is an indicator the company did something right, though.
While they haven't won any new business in quite a while (the PAL deal was done long before I even left the company, despite the representation of the linked piece), there's no reason why they can't get it going again. It's just going to take a little bit of getting outside the company's comfort zone.
