Candor is underrated
Last month, I watched the congressional hearing on baseball’s steroids problem. I’m not sure why. I think it was the same instinct that causes one to rubber-neck upon reaching an accident scene. You don’t really want to see the twisted metal — or worse — but you can’t suppress the urge.
I wish I had because I was sickened by what I saw. Congress repeatedly tried to get the players testifying to come clean, but was met at nearly every juncture by stonewalling and waffling and — almost certainly — lying. The display was sickening and almost made Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose, they of betting infamy, seem like solid citizens.
Two days earlier, I had a completely different experience when I visited Motorola with MRT senior writer Donny Jackson, who wrote this issue’s cover story. The day started in Motorola’s museum, where I learned many things about the company I didn’t know. For instance, I discovered that Motorola invented the car radio, an innovation that automobile manufacturers didn’t embrace for another 17 years. Not wanting the development to die on the vine, Motorola sold the product through radio dealers, a practice it continues to embrace.
I also discovered how easily the company talks about its mistakes, as we were also told about the next, albeit ill-fated, stroke of genius. Buoyed by its success with the soon-to-be-ubiquitous car radio, Motorola decided the next logical step was to develop a car heater. The company’s engineers decided the unit should be powered by gasoline, which made some sense because that’s what powered the car. Unfortunately, the idea was better in theory than in practice. During tests, the heater set several cars on fire. Motorola’s board of directors soon after told company founder Paul Galvin to stick with electronics, a decision that set the future course for the company.
During our visit, Greg Brown, the president of Motorola’s newly christened government and enterprise mobility solutions segment, spoke candidly about the things the company needed to improve upon. Chief among them is Motorola’s agility when it comes to adapting to — and anticipating — changing market conditions. He also talked about the need to create a culture in which the company’s employees not only are willing to crawl out onto the limb, but are confident it won’t be cut off behind them by their superiors.
Right now, it’s anybody’s guess as to whether Brown will succeed in exacting change. But he’s off to a good start, in that the first step toward correcting mistakes and inadequacies is to admit to them. It’s a lesson certain baseball players would do well to learn.
