A couple of months back sequestration was imposed upon us with the threat that the country would essentially shut down services. I explained in my previous column why that would not happen. And, I don’t know about you but I have not seen any material repercussions from sequestration. Oh, well, maybe if you wanted to take a White House tour or you did not want to have your flight delayed but really can you imagine anything less consequential. What this proves to me and I hope to you, that cutting costs and managing efficiently is a must in every business and certainly is needed in government.
Let’s go to the management principle first; prioritize. I can not even imagine a day in my entire business career of almost 50 years when I was not required to prioritize and then make a choice. Most of the time it was two competing departments with two competing plans that each wanted the one bit of funds available in the budget. Other times it was tougher when I had to make decisions on which employee would get an increase and which would not or get a smaller percentage. And in critical times I had to make really tough choices about how many people to employ and prioritize payments to our vendors.
For me there is no such thing as a manager who does not prioritize and then makes choices. If one can’t establish priorities, work to a schedule and make decisions then they should be in a different line of work. Show me a CEO who thinks that they can do everything, tackle every new idea, employ unlimited people, sustain uncontrolled expense and be everything to every person in every market and I will show you a company that will certainly fail. Yet our government seems to think and certainly acts that way.
If I had to take one lesson from my business experience it is without focus you are lost. Infinity is not available to us in this life. Time and money are limited and as such we must utilize these limited resources effectively. I can see no way to achieve MBO’s other than to utilize discretion, prioritization and selection. For after all, some things are simply more critical and more important. That is why projects have critical paths. These critical paths make it clear that not everything can be done at once, certain things depend upon previous things being completed and efficiency dictates the path to success. Is this tough to understand? I think no but yet our government just doesn’t get it.
So, canceling White House tours saves very little but I guess I agree on the scale of importance, this is a pretty good item to select for savings. Removing extra security from around the legislative offices seems a bit more risky but that too seems to be lower on the hierarchy of needs. Now furloughing air controllers is not the most critical need but it sure doesn’t make much sense. Administration officials were quoted as saying that they had to be “fair” and make uniform cuts throughout the FAA. Really? This isn’t fair it is incompetence. So their choice was public safety or FAA managers traveling to conferences? Public safety or one more policy or regulation? Public safety or more coffee and tea in employee work areas? Can no one prioritize? For you see, cutting cost is not the problem but cutting the right things is the real issue. And why can’t these high paid administrators in the FAA make a reasonable decision? Are they incapable or are they getting direction from the chief?
So to us in business, we who rely upon the air transportation system to move our businesses forward, make choices and selections every day and somehow make it work on a couple percent reduction in expense. Our costs go up because of government’s insatiable appetite for taxing and spending. They raise our cost of doing business by raising our fees and taxes. Our choice is only to prioritize and proceed. As CEO’s we are responsible to make a profit irrespective of cost increase, because the buck stops at our desk. It is our plan and our administration, so if we don’t make that profit we will surely be looking for another job.
It is time for our representatives to get the message. Stop penalizing us because we drive the economy. And it is up to us to remember and emulate what happens in the real world. When something doesn’t work we need to vote the rascal out. It will surely improve our bottom line.