Resetting Your Clock - Nissan, You and the Causes of Failure

If you've been following my current mini-series, you know I am up to REASON 3.

Reason 3?

There were 4 reasons at-the-time COO Carlos Ghosn gave for why Nissan was about to crash and burn in 1999. In one of the most spectacular corporate recoveries ever seen: within one year Nissan returned to profit after 6 years of losses; within a few years Nissan had vaulted into the positon of the most profitable car-maker in the world.

The breath-taking speed of this transformation was the essence of the 3rd reason Carlos wrote about:

"…people told me a year for what should have taken a week, and three years for something that should have been done in three months. I quickly realized I was going to have to reset the company clock."

I see it all the time.

I've just come off running a CareerThinking coaching session with a group of trainees in BodyChance, and two of them are still toying with same decision they voiced over two years ago.

Where's the urgency in that? Does it matter? Up to you…

Another big believer in a quick turnaround is Byron Katie. Some people take years to get over trauma, others do it quickly. Why is there a difference? If you're going to get over someone dying, why not skip the part in the middle and get over it now…

What's going to change if you don't?

Of course all this is unreasonable, and so was Carlos. And so are most people who effect strong, positive change in the world. George Bernard Shaw said it best, so I'll let him have the last word:

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

TOMORROW: The final 4th reason that led to Nissan's phenomenal transformation, and how it might apply to your practise…