Draw your own conclusions.
In my December 18th column I asserted that Bush and Gore should both be embarrassed about their total lack of leadership during the Florida election fiasco. Quite a few angry readers, all politically conservative supporters of our new president, complained. Every one accused me of being partisan on the subject. Most of them were unpleasant. Many repeated almost verbatim the most anti-factual of Republican propaganda. (A distinction: Much of the Republican propaganda was in direct opposition to the facts, and vitriolic besides. The Democratic propaganda was simply preposterous. Chalk it up to a difference in style.)
No Gore supporters griped about my being a Republican partisan. Go figure.
Other correspondents expressed concern that I inappropriately strayed into political commentary in an IT publication. Fear not. Leadership is a frequent topic in this column, and while I’ll continue to draw on current events to illustrate leadership issues, I’ll also continue to be bipartisan when I disparage our political so-called leadership. In other words, I won’t ever mention that more than $40 million worth of investigation successfully proved Bill Clinton cheated on his wife and lied about it in court without also mentioning that his two predecessors — Reagan and Bush Sr. — sanctioned the sale of illicit drugs to American citizens to finance an illegal war against the legitimate government of Nicaragua.
American values being what they are, most appear to consider Clinton’s crime the more deplorable of the two.
Which is relevant to this week’s prediction. But first …
I’d originally planned to make a bunch of New Year’s predictions this week. It’s something of a January tradition after all.
Sadly, I don’t have anything interesting to predict. The trends that will play out this year started awhile ago. 2001 will see the continuing e-enablement of business, not a transformation to something unrecognizable. Radically new business models won’t flourish: ASPs won’t enjoy triple-digit growth; auctions won’t become the dominant means for setting price in either the B2B or B2C world; digital exchanges will mostly find success by scaling back to become transaction clearinghouses.
2001 will be a year of consolidation and incremental improvement. In part, this will be the result of economic jitters. It’s also due to simple fatigue — there’s a limit to the amount of radical change society can eat before it has to stop and do some digesting.
My one new prediction is social, although it will affect the world of business: The Bobby Knight syndrome will start to recede.
You recall Bobby Knight, Indiana’s dear departed basketball coach. Knight behaved as if winning absolved all sins. He threw chairs, abused office staff, and assaulted those who made him angry (not a difficult task), attributing all criticism to jealousy. If it were just Knight we could chalk this up to a psychological case study. Sadly, Knight enjoys a huge coterie of supporters who agree with his philosophy that results are all that matter.
Every time you hear someone say, “We do whatever it takes,” you’re hearing an echo of Bobby Knight, because sometimes, “whatever it takes” is (or should be) completely unacceptable. I’m guessing Americans have reached their limit and are ready to say, “We don’t want you do to whatever it takes. We insist that you respect some boundaries, and only win if you can stay inside them.”
Or maybe it’s just a hope.